What Nobody Saw: Day 6

Word Count: 36,062

Summary of Events:

Walker started sorting through the personal papers from the attic, sorting the diaries chronologically and trying to group the remaining papers by writing style as much as he could; while he was doing so he discovered a photo of a stunningly beautiful woman who looked like she could've been a movie star . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Was this Mrs. Schissler?

Walker turned the photo over and compared the handwriting on the front of the diary to that on the back of the photo. They were the same. The diaries, he knew, were written by Zina thanks to a process of elimination — she’d mentioned Wanda by name and talked about wanting dresses, plus the writing on the diaries took on a distinctly feminine appearance as the years advanced — thus if she was identifying the woman in the photograph as her mother, then that meant that, indeed, the spellbindingly beautiful woman in the photo was Mrs. Jolene Schissler.

By now Walker wagered Mrs. Schissler would have grey hair, as she’d probably at least been in her thirties when this photo was taken, which was forty years ago, thus she was presently in her seventies; unless she had the anti-grey genes that Grandpa Felix’s mother had, as there were photos of her at the age of eighty and her hair wasn’t even close to grey.

Thumbing through the diary, Walker found another photo of a handsome young man who looked significantly younger than Mrs. Schissler, having a youthful appearance in spite of his mature clothes and hairstyle.

On the back of it was a different hand: Love Always, Milt Forster, 1979.

Walker guessed it was Zina’s boyfriend. He looked at the page and found an entry that matched:

Friday, 27 April 1979

Milty’s family got their photos yesterday and he gave me one! He looks so dreamy! I wish I were old enough to get married already so that I could be his wife.

He gave it to me when he came to pick up Maureen and offered to drive me most of the way home. I really wanted to go, but I knew I’d have to be down off the clouds by the time I got home or Dad would be asking questions, so I told him it’d have to be another time.

I didn’t actually look at the back of the photo until I came home and it was all I could do to be sober by the time we had supper, Milty wrote ‘love always’ on the back. He actually really likes me! If I could get married now I would and then I could be out from under Dad’s control and actually be able to be happy without having to be interrogated.

Honestly, when people wonder what it’s got to be like to live behind the Iron Curtain, I think I probably know better than anyone. Dad could be a Soviet dictator without even trying; speaking of which, I should get on my homework so he doesn’t come in here and yell at me.

Walker closed both photos back into the diary and flipped to the front page before placing it on the stack where it belonged chronologically. Everything he was seeing in these papers was pointing toward an unpleasant, unhappy existence in the Schissler household beyond what he might have ever imagined.