Underexposure

Underexposure

by

John Eckenrode

“This was a mistake.” Tom dislikes nondescript rest areas on the big highways, so took an exit, hoping to find a small town with a diner or cafe. Now halfway across Ohio he is second guessing this decision and debates whether to turn around. He drives another mile on a rural road but there is nothing but a few farms with weatherbeaten barns.

An old high school friend has died. He wanted to be at the funeral. After five hours in the car, he needs to stretch his 65-year-old legs, find a bathroom, and get some food.

He decides to go just a little farther. After another mile he comes into a small village. There is a town square and a small public park with a civil war memorial statue. The park is lined with folding tables and pop-up tents – flea market day. He parks on the street and walks through the market on his way to the main commercial street.

Flea markets never interested Tom – other people’s junk - but one table stands out. On it are photographs, some framed, others piled in boxes. Pictures of ornate buildings or street scenes, but mostly of people – families - at weddings, birthdays, reunions. Not professionally done except for a few studio portraits. There are almost no labels to identify the people or reveal where the pictures were taken. From the clothing, haircuts, and cars, he concludes that they are mostly from the 1950’s and 60’s.

Curious why anyone would buy anonymous family pictures he asks the old woman sitting in a folding chair behind the table where they came from and why people buy them. She looks up at him over her glasses, “Oh, from yards sales and estate sales – people practically give them away, especially young people who are cleaning out their dead parents’ houses. People usually find one or two they like for some reason – reminds them of somewhere or somebody, or of a time gone by.”

A nice sales pitch, he thinks, but he is skeptical – cannot imagine someone paying for any of the family pictures he has in boxes under his bed. Then, one of the larger framed pictures catches his eye. He picks it up – it is a family picture, people standing by the front door of a large stone house. A middle-aged man and woman; a younger man about thirty, and a woman holding a baby.

Tom fumbles in his shirt pocket for his reading glasses. Pulling the photograph closer he realizes that he knows these people. It is his grandparents in front of their English Tudor style house, his parents, and him, the baby in his mother’s arms.

But something is strange - unfamiliar. Standing in front of his dad is a boy about four or five years old. Tom’s dad has a hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if to steady him for the photograph. The boy is looking up at Tom’s dad, as if for reassurance. Everyone is dressed nicely, even baby Tom has on a white outfit and booties. His family were practicing Catholics, so the picture could have been taken after church, some Sunday sixty-four years ago. But the boy? Who is he? Tom grew up as an only child.

“Where did you get this one?” he asks.

The old woman glances at it, “Not exactly sure.”

“But I’m in it!” he says. “Look - I’m the baby!”

“Ah that’s nice. Like I said, people usually find one that speaks to them – it’s two dollars – a nice frame.”

“But where did you get it?”

“Might have been at a barn sale about a month ago – outside of town on rte. 32, just past the Harris horse farm.”

“Do you know the people’s names?”

“I think it was old man Miller’s place,” she says. “Two dollars.”

“Thanks,” he says and hands her the bills.

As he walks away, he glances back at the tents and tables. The old woman is placing another framed picture on her table. Now out of the park and farther down the main street he finds a small café, practically runs to the rest room, and orders a sandwich.

He studies the photograph, wondering how his family picture ended up here. He tries to imagine how many hands the photo passed through before it landed in the middle of Ohio in a town he has never visited. His closest known relatives live hundreds of miles away. Who framed the picture and had it on their bedroom dresser? The photo ended up in a pile of things discarded in a barn sale. There was no one left who wanted it - until now.

The woman said Miller. His grandmother was born in the 1880’s and her mom’s last name was Miller. He had never met anyone from that distant branch of the family. He wonders if the owner’s attachment to it was through his grandmother – someone’s beloved aunt? The picture’s owner might not have even known his name.

But he is both curious about and bothered by the boy. He turns the frame over to see if anything is written on the back – or a label. Nothing. He takes out his pocketknife and bends the points to remove the backing, looking for something written on the back of the photo. Only a date in pencil – no names. He puts the frame back together, sets it aside, and orders apple pie and coffee.

Caught up inside a reverie Tom tries to resurrect specific memories of himself as a very young child. The earliest one is of him standing up in a crib with his stuffed toy fox. He was put to bed upstairs while his mom and dad were having ice cream downstairs. He somehow knew this and screamed until his mom came up and carried him down. Maybe a brother was downstairs – why he was so upset at not being included. But he has no mental image of this older boy being there.

He thinks that he should remember more, but he was too young. He does remember being three or four and wishing for a brother, or even a sister. But it never happened. He was often left alone in his room to play with his toys. He needed someone to play soldiers with him, to help build with Lincoln Logs, and to laugh and wrestle with.

His mother would sometimes ask him to whom he was talking. Just my brother Billy he told her. At that age his parents did not discourage this fantasy – they thought that he would grow out it. But he kept his imaginary brother nearby even as he started kindergarten. He remembers that his parents became worried and told him that he was now too old for an imaginary brother. Tom began to keep Billy to himself, talking with him quietly in bed at night, or outside in the back yard. Eventually, he made friends at school - had them over to play at his house. He stopped talking to his imaginary brother, but he continued to dream of Billy, always older and taller than Tom, always ready to talk to him, play with him.

Tom leaves the café and heads back to the car. Vendors are packing up. He looks for the woman, but she is gone. He needs to get back on the road. The funeral is tomorrow. He drives out of town and, as he approaches an intersection, he sees a sign for route 32 – to the left. He pulls over to the side of the road and checks the map on his cell phone. Route 32 goes all the way to Indiana, although it would take longer than using the bigger highway.

The boy? A real brother he never knew? Who died or disappeared? If so, why was he kept a secret? Could he still be alive? Living here in Ohio? Someone must know. But all the adults in the picture are now dead.

He slowly pulls back onto the road and puts on his left turn signal.