Philip Dampier's Blog

Episode 3

Across town in a small one-room apartment, Mary Elizabeth put the newspaper down. The tears were making it impossible to read, and her heart had taken in all it could stand for a moment. The newspaper had a picture of Billy Johnson and also one of the shrine at the wall. She knew it was her Billy even though she had not seen him since he and Hannah had been taken from her arms ten years before. Billy looked just like the man who had fathered him.

Five of those ten years she had spent in the state woman’s prison in the northern part of the state. The last five she had spent trying to finish her parole and saving every dime she could. Three weeks ago she had moved back to the city where she had given birth to her two children. Mary Elizabeth had given up hope of getting her children back, and now one of them was dead.

Suddenly, a thought came to her. She went into the bathroom and washed her face and dried her eyes. Sunday was her day off, and she could try to find the wall with the candles and bears. She decided to go to bed early instead of reading. She couldn’t afford a television yet, but she had her eye on another job that would pay more if they would hire ex-cons.

Lying in bed, Mary Elizabeth tried to focus her thoughts. She wanted to see Hannah as she had seen Billy. She had frozen her daughter’s face in her memory, but that was a picture taken ten years ago. She tried to imagine what she would look like now. She would be twelve now and turning into a young woman. It was frustrating not to be able to visualize her as she was now.

Hannah would have been in her foster home for ten years now. She would have a mother and father and love them and be loved. Mary Elizabeth realized Hannah would not only not know her, but she also would not care about her. Best to leave things alone. Maybe later, when Hannah was in high school or college, she would be interested in meeting her real mother.

Three days later an automobile pulled up and parked beside the concrete wall. The driver opened the door but did not get out of the car. Although her face was in shadow, it was easy to tell she was sad. There was something about how she turned away from the sun and rested the weight of her hands on the steering wheel, something about her silent composure that caused Hannah to sigh. The young girl watched the driver lean out of the car and stretch her hand out towards one of the burned out candles.

It was then that Hannah saw the woman’s face. The woman’s outstretched hand pushed her light brown hair from her eyes exposing a lightly freckled face and light green eyes. Hannah gasped. The woman looked like her; like she had imagined when she stared at her face in the kitchen mirror.

Mary Elizabeth moved in her seat, swinging her legs out of the interior of the sedan. She leaned forward and stepped out of the car. She was not very steady on her feet, and Hannah saw a tear slowly moving down the woman’s cheek and fall on the ground. The young girl’s heart stopped for a second, and she moved from the shadow of the large oak to the left of the shrine.

Mary Elizabeth caught the motion in the edge of her vision and turned her head. She had not realized anyone was at the shrine but her. Something caught in her throat. She had trouble breathing and swallowing. The candles, flowers, and bears were temporarily forgotten. She knew this girl. This girl was exactly like the one in her picture box of her when she was in the seventh grade.

Neither of the two spoke; they just stared at the other. For both of them, it was like looking in a time travel machine’s window. One looking ahead and one looking behind. Both wanted to speak but were afraid. Slowly, the two strangers began to walk towards each other, both excited and afraid. What if what they were thinking wasn’t true?