“What about a school yearbook?”
“That’s genius!” Natasha’s posture whipped straight. She faced her computer and began typing. “Remember all those photos I displayed at Wyatt’s birthday dinner two years ago? One of them was of him on the JV basketball team in high school. I found that on a website. It’s amazing how many yearbooks have been archived online.”
“Dad was in a fraternity, and Mom was in a sorority. Both those organizations would be featured in a yearbook.”
“Russell’s obituary mentioned that he was in a fraternity, too,” Natasha said. “But it wasn’t the same fraternity as Dad’s.”
“Maybe something else connected them. Intramural sports occurred to me yesterday.”
“Or a club of some sort? If we can find a picture or even a listing of names that proves that Dad was in the same organization the same year as Russell or Mom, we’ll have our evidence.”
Natasha journeyed to a site specializing in yearbook records and typed inRussell Atwell, Mercer University, 1982. Two results popped up. Genevieve held her breath as Natasha clicked on the first link. It revealed a class photo nestled within a full page of class photos. They’d both seen this picture of Russell numerous times.
“Shoot,” Natasha said. “‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do.’” She returned to the search results and clicked on the second and final link.
A yearbook page about Russell’s fraternity appeared. They found him in a group picture that showed at least ten guys doing construction on a service project. Dad wasn’t in the photo.
Natasha ran a search for Mom. Again, two hits. One for Mom’s class photo and one for Mom’s sorority. Mom’s name was listed alongside the names of her sorority sisters, but she wasn’t featured in any of the photos on the sorority’s page.
They might be wasting their time, hunting for a college connection. Mercer had thousands of students.
Finally, Natasha ran a search for Dad. This time the site found three matches. The first led them to a page focused on a Christian student organization. Dad stood, the tallest of the bunch, clean-cut and smiling, in the back row of the photo. Russell wasn’t listed as a member of the organization. The second match took them to Dad’s class photo. The final match brought up his fraternity’s page.
Genevieve drew in a sharp breath of astonishment. “There.” She pointed.
They peered at the screen. Then at each other, speaking volumes through the look they shared. Then at the screen.
The photo on the left center of the page revealed their dad ... with Mom on his arm.
The two of them together, in college. Five years before they’d said they met.
Mom wore a formal gown and a feathered hairstyle. Dad, his gangly body garbed in a tuxedo, looked down at Mom with an enamored smile on his face. His hand clasped hers securely. Mom gazed straight at the photographer, laughter twinkling in her eyes. The caption below read,Fraternity treasurer Judson Woodward enjoys a night out with his date.
Natasha consumed another celery stick the way a glue gun consumes glue sticks.
“I can’t believe we actually found evidence,” Genevieve whispered shakily. She’d been right when she’d deduced that Dad might have known either Russell or Mom before coming to Camden. But she’d been fairly sure that Russell was the one Dad would have known.
No. It had been Mom.
Natasha spun her desk chair to face Genevieve. “Not only did they know each other in college, they were in love with each other in college.”
“We don’t know that they were in love,” Genevieve felt honor-boundto say. “We only know that they went to one function together.”
“Look at his face, Gen! He’s got that soft, smitten look.”
True. The young man in the photo had thick dark hair unmarked by silver and no beard. A pair of ’80s-style glasses fit securely on his nose. His ears and Adam’s apple had both been a little more prominent back then, when he’d been skinnier. However, a few things about her father had remained exactly the same: the kindness in his demeanor and the expression on his face. Her older, more weathered father still looked at Mom that very same way.
“Mom’s beaming like I’ve never seen before,” Natasha said.
Right, because after this her first husband was killed. Later, her daughters were almost killed. Life had made her nervous, which had prevented her from experiencing the type of undiluted happiness captured in this old yearbook picture.
“Hon?” Wyatt called from the region of the back door. “Is it time to change into costumes?”
“Not quite yet. Five more minutes.”
The back door closed in response.
“So,” Genevieve said, “let’s say that Mom and Dad were a couple in college. But then something happened to break them up.”
