Missing Purse

When I was in middle school, right before our family's big move to Indiana, I found a role of old negatives in my grandmother's sewing room. That was a wonderful room. There were odd things everywhere and you never knew what you'd find if you looked in a closet or opened a drawer.

When I found the negatives, my aunt was visiting, and I think we must have been on some mission to tidy up the room (which, by the way, would have been a lost cause anyway). I opened them and asked Marilyn (my aunt) who the people were. I recognized my dad, he was the same skinny guy with big ears in all the other old pictures, but I didn't recognize the woman beside him. And whoever she was, she was wearing a wedding dress.

Marilyn called my grandmother in and showed her the pictures too. This was all done pretty much without any talking. Or rather, nobody else talking but me. I kept asking the same questions, "who is that woman?" "when was this taken" "where's my mom?". I'm sure I must have been incredibly annoying, as only a middle schooler who smells blood can be.

Grandma told Marilyn to throw them away. I think she said something like "trash belongs in the garbage", which, for MY grandmother was as close to swearing as I'd ever heard her get. Of course when nobody was looking I pulled the role out of the trash and slipped it into my denim purse. Strange how I can still remember what it looked like.

After a few hours of nagging I finally got my aunt to tell me who was in the picture. It was Carol. Now, my mother's name is Carol, which confused me, because this woman was short and had long hair. My mother had long hair once, while in college, and I've heard the story about her hippie days and how she'd never wear her hair like that ever again.

Carol, it turned out, was my father's first wife. First. Wife. Up until that time I'd always believed my mother was my father's first wife. It's not like they married super late in life, he was only 28 when they wed, and their wedding pictures are all smiles, shock, and love. Like they couldn't believe they'd been so lucky to find each other. Well, we all know how that turned out. But they did seem happy in the photos.

I'd planned on taking the photos to a photo shop as soon as I could figure out how to do so without arousing any suspicion. I didn't want my mother to know because I didn't know if SHE knew she was a second wife, and I didn't want my grandmother to know because she'd been adamant that the pictures find their way (and stay) in the trash bin. I was in 7th grade, however, which means I couldn't just hop in the car and head down to Walgreens, so they stayed in my purse, in a little black cannister jiggling around among the foil wrapped wads of chewing gum and spare quarters (what else would I keep in my purse, I was 13?).

And meanwhile I began to dream. I made up loads of stories about how I wasn't really my mother's daughter (everyone told us we looked identical, but I never saw the similarity) or how I was born out of wedlock. I pictured my dad forced to wed a pregnant Mom despite giving up the love of his life. I imagined that I was adopted and my real mother was a beautiful dark haired woman. Perhaps she'd died and my mother raised me in her place.

I never got to see a good picture of this false mother however, because as I plotted to get the negatives developed someone stole my purse. I'm not sure if it was in gym class or in choir, but I suppose it didn't really matter. Both the purse and the negatives were gone. Years later I found out that Carol (not my mother) had cheated on my father with my dad's best friend. My grandmother purged the house of any pictures. I'm sure one exists somewhere in the world today, but not in that house.

It took me years to get over it. I never knew much about my father's life. He wasn't really around to tell the stories. I heard about his childhood and an underground fort he built in his backyard, and I heard about the Navy, but I never heard anything in between. It's funny how we can know someone and really not know much about them.