Mammaw cradled the manila envelope, addressed to her in clumsy handwriting.
“He sent me these pictures of my daddy,” she explained. Her father? My mind flashed back to memories of the house, a cat, a candle, flames, the floral rocking chair and then finally to the pink chair which I so deeply abhored throughout my childhood. Mammaw Cindy, old and grey, the only great grandmother I ever knew. And how I never gave thought to the fact that she had had a husband. From my scarce memories, I can only see images and the ghostly bluish visitor that visited me.
“How old are these?” My mother asked. Of course, Mammaw is not my biological grandmother. My true grandmother passed young, leaving my mother a 13-year-old emotionally shattered. Mammaw, unlike the 2nd wife who goes unspoken of, is the closest thing mom has to a mother.
“I’m not exactly sure… but here’s one of daddy and his first wife.” Mammaw carefully pulled the old, beat up picture out of the envelope. A man with an old fashioned hairstyle in overalls was standing beside his small wife. The wife, whom I had no idea existed, was dressed in a 1920’s style dress. “He was about 36 here, and she was about 13 or 14.”
“Wow. That’s incredible,” Mom replied. But, you must understand: we are talking about deep Appalachia. Anything went.
“Don’t you know it? Looking back, it’s a crazy thought,” she shook her head. I followed her hand with my eyes as she set the photo down. On the table, I had failed to notice other pictures. Her wrinkled fingers slid to the next photo. “And this ‘un here is one of daddy and a bottle of moonshine!” She chuckled. Mom smiled. On to the next picture.
“This one is my favorite. This is daddy and two of the dogs, and little Carlissa snuck in the picture and squatted down beside one of the dogs. Doesn’t she look a lot like Cami?”
“They look identical!”
The less interesting conversation lost my attention.
I looked back down at the last photo. It was a photo of an old man, sitting on a couch with a giant Holy Bible and looking rather dissatisfied with the photographer. The date on the side, in the same font as my mother’s childhood photographs, was March 1956. I wondered when he died, as I had never heard of his life nor his death. Perhaps we’ll find out in next week’s visit.