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Authors: JT Lawrence
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cherry cigars. Silk carnations, flaking slasto, ants that taste like pepper. She snaps the last album shut and looks for another box of photos.
This can’t be all there is, she thinks. We’re missing 3 years. The first 3 years.
Kirsten, now driven by a fierce energy, attacks what is left of the boxes. Her mind races with possible explanations. Maybe they didn’t own a camera. Maybe they believed it was bad luck to photograph a baby. Maybe the photos were lost, stolen, burnt in a fire. There are no baby clothes either. No baby toys, but she’s sure they must have been given away – there were hundreds of orphans in those days – abandoned babies: unheard of today. She feels wet patches bloom under her arms as she scrabbles through the contents. Her hair begins to bother her and she ties it up roughly into an untidy bun. As the boxes start to run out, her anxiety builds. She finds no more albums, but in the second last box she opens she discovers some framed photographs. Of course! She thinks, it was framed! That’s why it’s not in an album. A calming finger on her heart.
And there it is, almost exactly how she remembers it. She clutches it, searching it for detail. The heat of her hands mist the silver frame: heavy, decorative, tasteful. The picture not exactly in focus, but close enough. A blue cotton dress (Robin Egg) puckered by the tanned arm holding her up. She has no aunts, no grandmothers; that must be her mom’s arm, although she doesn’t recognise it.
She expects the photo to make her feel some kind of relief, but it has the opposite effect. Some small idea is tapping at her, whirring in her brain. Something feels off the mark. She scans the picture again.
What is it? The texture. The texture of the paper is wrong. It isn’t printed on glossy or matt photo paper, the way it would have been in 1987. It’s grainy, pulpy. Kirsten turns the frame over in her hands and pries the back loose. A quarter of a glamorous cigarette print ad stares back at her, its bright blue slashing her vision.
Kirsten turns it over and over again, battling to understand, not wanting to understand. It’s not a photo of her. It’s not a photo at all, but a cutting from a magazine. The autopsy diagram flits into her mind with its careless cross over her mother’s lower abdomen.
She glances over at the cheap looking birth certificate, and then down to the piece of paper in her hands. Perhaps her photo was published in the magazine for some reason? Living & Loving, the cutting says, ‘New Winter Beauties,’ July 1991. She had been three years old when this issue had been printed.
Journal entry
12 March 1987
Westville
In the news: Sweden announces a total boycott on trading with South Africa. Les Miserables opens at Broadway.
What I’m listening to: The Joshua Tree by U2. Radical.
What I’m reading: The scariest book known to man: IT by Stephen King.
What I’m watching: Lethal Weapon
I am, like, the happiest person in the world right now. When I told P about the baby I thought the worst, but I am right to love him because he is the nicest, sweetest, strongest man ever. Okay he was totally shocked but after a few minutes he hugged me so tightly and said that he would take care of the baby and me. I thought that he meant having us holed up somewhere as a secret lover and lovechild (which would have been totally fine by me!) but he is a better man than that. Said he wants to be a good father and you can’t do that not living in the same house. He asked me to MARRY HIM!!!
It wasn’t, like, the romantic picture I had in my head, the proposal. I guess I thought that when the day arrived it would be all champagne and roses and candlelight. Maybe on a tropical beach somewhere (Mauritius?), or a fancy restaurant. And the man would be taller and have more hair and he’d be rich (and not married!) and I … well, I wouldn’t be knocked up. It was more of a
This can’t be all there is, she thinks. We’re missing 3 years. The first 3 years.
Kirsten, now driven by a fierce energy, attacks what is left of the boxes. Her mind races with possible explanations. Maybe they didn’t own a camera. Maybe they believed it was bad luck to photograph a baby. Maybe the photos were lost, stolen, burnt in a fire. There are no baby clothes either. No baby toys, but she’s sure they must have been given away – there were hundreds of orphans in those days – abandoned babies: unheard of today. She feels wet patches bloom under her arms as she scrabbles through the contents. Her hair begins to bother her and she ties it up roughly into an untidy bun. As the boxes start to run out, her anxiety builds. She finds no more albums, but in the second last box she opens she discovers some framed photographs. Of course! She thinks, it was framed! That’s why it’s not in an album. A calming finger on her heart.
And there it is, almost exactly how she remembers it. She clutches it, searching it for detail. The heat of her hands mist the silver frame: heavy, decorative, tasteful. The picture not exactly in focus, but close enough. A blue cotton dress (Robin Egg) puckered by the tanned arm holding her up. She has no aunts, no grandmothers; that must be her mom’s arm, although she doesn’t recognise it.
She expects the photo to make her feel some kind of relief, but it has the opposite effect. Some small idea is tapping at her, whirring in her brain. Something feels off the mark. She scans the picture again.
What is it? The texture. The texture of the paper is wrong. It isn’t printed on glossy or matt photo paper, the way it would have been in 1987. It’s grainy, pulpy. Kirsten turns the frame over in her hands and pries the back loose. A quarter of a glamorous cigarette print ad stares back at her, its bright blue slashing her vision.
Kirsten turns it over and over again, battling to understand, not wanting to understand. It’s not a photo of her. It’s not a photo at all, but a cutting from a magazine. The autopsy diagram flits into her mind with its careless cross over her mother’s lower abdomen.
She glances over at the cheap looking birth certificate, and then down to the piece of paper in her hands. Perhaps her photo was published in the magazine for some reason? Living & Loving, the cutting says, ‘New Winter Beauties,’ July 1991. She had been three years old when this issue had been printed.
Journal entry
12 March 1987
Westville
In the news: Sweden announces a total boycott on trading with South Africa. Les Miserables opens at Broadway.
What I’m listening to: The Joshua Tree by U2. Radical.
What I’m reading: The scariest book known to man: IT by Stephen King.
What I’m watching: Lethal Weapon
I am, like, the happiest person in the world right now. When I told P about the baby I thought the worst, but I am right to love him because he is the nicest, sweetest, strongest man ever. Okay he was totally shocked but after a few minutes he hugged me so tightly and said that he would take care of the baby and me. I thought that he meant having us holed up somewhere as a secret lover and lovechild (which would have been totally fine by me!) but he is a better man than that. Said he wants to be a good father and you can’t do that not living in the same house. He asked me to MARRY HIM!!!
It wasn’t, like, the romantic picture I had in my head, the proposal. I guess I thought that when the day arrived it would be all champagne and roses and candlelight. Maybe on a tropical beach somewhere (Mauritius?), or a fancy restaurant. And the man would be taller and have more hair and he’d be rich (and not married!) and I … well, I wouldn’t be knocked up. It was more of a
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