Free The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan Page B

bangs that danced across her forehead, intense eyes like espresso beans. Like Lee’s. In her placid face, Lee saw her own slightly pointed nose, the heart-shaped curve of her upper lip, the same two valleys just below her cheekbones. Lee felt an instant connection. At last, she’d found her people.
    â€œWhat’s her name?” she asked, excited.
    â€œI’m sorry, I can’t tell you that,” Abby said. “As you know, yours was a closed adoption. All identifying information is sealed.”
    â€œCan I keep the photo?”
    â€œI’m afraid not. It stays with the file. But, go ahead and take a few minutes to look at one of your blood relatives. I’ll be right back.”
    While Abby left to get the physician referrals, Lee gripped the picture tightly in both fists. She lifted it up and held it close to her eyes, examining every millimeter of the tall woman’s body. Every fold in her long skirt, the high collar on her puffy white shirt, the wisps of hair bouncing about her pretty face,the way she stood so very erect in the aftermath of what had obviously been some kind of disaster. Just as Lee was reaching into her pocket for her iPhone—what harm could a quick photo do?—Valerie leaned close to her daughter and read the tiny printing on the back of the snapshot: “‘Woman with Clara Barton.’”
    Pulling back, she looked at Lee quizzically. “Isn’t Clara Barton the woman who started the Red Cross?”
    Just then, Abby returned to the cubicle and plucked the photo out of Lee’s hands. Turning it over, she read the back and said, “You probably shouldn’t have seen that.”
    â€œIs Lee related to Clara Barton?” Valerie’s eyes were as round and shiny as new quarters.
    â€œFor the record, I believe that Clara Barton is the woman on the left . Lee’s ancestor is the unidentified woman on the right.”
    â€œGreat, great, great,” Lee said, almost to herself.
    â€œIsn’t it?” Valerie excitedly cupped her daughter’s chin.
    Sitting back in her chair, Lee grinned. Judging by the Victorian hair and clothes in the photograph, she figured the photo was taken sometime in the nineteenth century. Which meant five generations ago. Maybe six. At twenty-five years per generation, the unidentified woman on the right—the one who looked just like her—would be her great-great-great-grandmother. At the very least.
    Thank goodness she was a whiz at math. She now had a starting point.

CHAPTER 11

    Courtesy of the Johnstown Flood Museum Archives, Johnstown Area Heritage Association
    SOUTH FORK FISHING AND HUNTING CLUB
    Summer 1888
    A re you unwell, miss?” Nettie’s hazel eyes regard me with concern as I stomp into the cottage and call her to my room.
    â€œNot in the slightest. Could you please help me out of these clothes?”
    â€œA royal family is arriving from England today, miss.”
    â€œThey’re not royal. Besides, I don’t care.”
    On my way up the stairs, I reach my hand into my upswept hair to pull out the amethyst-tipped clips. To Nettie I say, “I’ll wear my brown box-pleat skirt today.”
    Now she looks alarmed. “Surely the other ladies will be dressed in their best sport finery.”
    â€œSurely. And my plain shirtwaist, too.”
    â€œIs something wrong with the lavender cotton?”
    â€œYes. It’s too lovely for a day alone in my room.”
    Scurrying after me, Nettie watches me yank the final clip from my hair to release my bound-up locks. In a tumble of dark curls, my hair falls nearly all the way to the small of my back. Like a wet dog, I shake my head and feel delicious freedom. Today will be my happiest day of the whole summer. Solitude and liberty. Glorious!
    Inside my room—decorated in the same heliotrope colors as my bedroom in Upper St. Clair—I stand in front of the pier glass between the windows and wait for