Mystery Woman

I found a photo of a woman I have never seen before. The woman caught my interest right away, because she looked somewhat like myself.  This photo was buried my grandpa’s chest, so it had to have some importance to him. She had light blonde hair with curls that were down to her waist; her hair was the same strawberry blonde as mine. The picture was taken when she played high school softball, because under the playing year, which was 1992, it said “Lady Warriors” in big bold red letters. The back of the photo was smudged, so at one point, there was more information that could’ve told my nosey self more. I was confused because the bottom of the picture looked like it had been torn where her name would be printed on the photo. This sparked my interest even more. I needed to know whom she was, why she was in my grandpa’s chest where he kept all of his old cards and letters from the air force when he was deployed, and I wanted to know why she looked like me. Was it an aunt that I never saw? I just needed to know who this woman was.

I asked both of my parents who she was, and they just looked at each other then back at me while shrugging their shoulders saying, “We don’t know sweetie.”

             

 

“We should have told her, I knew we should have. I knew Samantha would’ve eventually found out about her someway. Mark, why didn’t we just tell her? We stress honesty, but we haven’t been honest to our own daughter.. I’m an awful mother..”

“It’s okay Tina, she wont know how to find her, we just couldn’t do it back then.. Our secret will still be just our secret.”