Free Maude Brown's Baby by Richard Cunningham

you said. And you’re inquiring about Mr. Sparks.”
    “Yes, he and Jake are good friends.”
    The mantle clock in the parlor chimed four sets, then ten single tones in a row.
    “ Goodness, ten o’clock already. It seemed much earlier. “Am I keeping you up, Miss Barnes?”
    “Not at all . There’s another cookie here with your name on it.”
    Donald reddened but grinned as he reached for the jar. “They’re delicious! Did you make them yourself?”
    “Of course. The nuts came from a tree Mama and I planted after the house was raised to its present grade. The tree is only now beginning to bear pecans. The first of them dropped a few days ago , and I found them before the squirrels did.”
    Donald was distracted. When Clara’s li ps smiled, her eyes smiled too. Suddenly he remembered the large book in the carriage house.
    “ Are you a nurse?”
    “Yes. Well, a nurse in training. It takes time to become certified. My classes resume next week at Sealy. They’re hard, and sometimes I wonder if I can keep up.”
    Clara looked across at Donald. He nodded in return.
    “I love the work,” she continued. “I just hope I can equal my mother’s skill. My father taught at the medical school and they met one day when he lectured to her class. Mama earned her certification, but didn’t work while Papa was alive. Everyone was needed after the storm, so she vol unteered. Nursing soon became her full-time job.”
    From the kitchen, Donald noticed a small lamp shining at the far end of the parlor. “I’m sure,” he said slowly, “your parents would be proud of you.”
    “Thank you.” Clara follow ed his gaze, then remembered the photograph he had mentioned earlier.
    “Your baby picture. Did your mother leave it with the nurse at the hospital?”
    “I don’t know if the woman who left me was my mother, but yes, the photograph was tucked in my blanket.”
    Clara sensed that Donald had more to say. She fixed her eyes on the table top and chose her words carefully.
    “The picture surely means a great deal to you, Mr. Brown. As a photographer, I suppose you’ve spent hours studying every detail.”
    “It looks like someone’s home,” he said abruptly.
    “Excuse me ?”
    “I mean, it’s not a typical portra it from a professional studio. It was taken in an ordinary room.”
    Clara leaned forward, but continued to gaze at the table while Donald described the print.
    “My hand is resting on the arm of a chair. I’m dressed in a baby’s white smock, with embroidery on the front. There’s a door and striped wallpaper in the background, and books or boxes are leaning against one wall …”
    “Ah!” Clara gripped the table’s edge with both hands.
    “What's the matter?”
    “That image—a baby in a chair—sounds familiar. I may have seen it before.”
    “What! Where?”
    “After the storm, Mama saved photographs that she and others found in the debris.”
    “Why would …” Clara raised her hand to stop him.
    “My mother was a nurse, s o at first light, the morning after the storm, she left me and my brother with our aunt and made her way to the hospital. One poor man she met was clutching a photograph and sobbing. He told Mama it was all he had left of his family. Mama never forgot.”
    “But you said she collected photographs?”
    “Yes. She was walking home that first day, picking her way through the wreckage, when she found a photograph. It was damaged, but not so much that you couldn’t see who was in the picture. She remembered the desperate man she’d met in the hospital and brought the photo home.”
    “Did she recognize anyone in it?”
    “I don’t think so, but from then on, she watched for pictures. As soon as Mama’s friends heard what she was doing, they brought more. Mama numbered each one and wrote down where it was found, who gave it to her and when. She did her best to preserve them, drying the paper prints and cleaning off the mud. I remember seeing batches of them here on this