Holly sat on the floor and sipped her coffee. She stared at the photographs scattered around her like steppingstones to the past. Unearthed after years of hiding in the recesses of the bedroom closet, these artifacts were now coming to light as a result of extreme boredom.
One does tend to get bored while stuck at home during a worldwide pandemic.
Once exposed to the light of day, the pictures had taunted her with their disarray until she had sorted them into vaguely chronological piles. She let her eyes wander over them.
First was a stack from her childhood. Early years of black and white baby pictures co-mingled with ancient relatives, few of whom Holly recognized. And her old school pictures. Have mercy!
An 8x10 glossy peeked out and she retrieved it. A prom picture from 1968. Seventeen-year-old Holly clutched a bouquet of pink carnations - French bouquets the girls called them. Her hair cascaded down her back in ringlets and she seemed to float in a cloud of tulle. Her date had been named Tom. Or Tim? She didn’t remember. What she did remember was the transformation of the high school gym into a fairyland of lights and music.
She set the picture down and moved to the next stack.
Wedding pictures. Several professional wedding pictures of her and Dan were displayed throughout the house, but these were snapshots from friends and family. If Dan were still alive, they would reminisce about the ceremony and reception. They would laugh about his exgirlfriends and her stuffy relatives. Now, though…well.
She put the pictures aside.
There were quite a few pictures of Holly during her career as a librarian. She had loved her work. Most of the time.
Being the librarian of a small town was sometimes like walking a tightrope, and during the fall of 1979, she had almost been fired for her refusal to ban Catcher in the Rye from the collection.
She was again called on the carpet in the early 2000s for allowing the town’s homeless few to feel at home in the library, occupying the chairs and using the restrooms.
But she stood firm. Holly believed that people mattered more than things. And no group of people mattered more than any other. Anyway, like most things, the problems blew over eventually. Now she chuckled at how her hairstyle had evolved through the years.
She moved on to the next group of pictures, which followed the transformation of her daughter, Cecily, from a blurry spec on an ultrasound to a lovely young woman. Now, this was nice!
She leaned back against the wall and stretched out her legs.
There was Cecily, in a white Christening gown, screaming into the ear of a stoic Father Melrose. And there she was on her first Christmas morning, sitting in front of the tree, surrounded by tissue paper and bows. There was Cecily on her first day of Kindergarten. Cecily on a pony. Cecily with birthday cakes and at school programs, church youth choir and school dances.
Cecily at her White Coat Ceremony. Who would have guessed that her little girl would grow up to be a pediatrician?
She leaned forward and surveyed the pictures again. So many moments. So many years. Not to mention the ones safely stored on her phone and available to her at the touch of her finger any time and any place.
It had been a good life.
And now? Now, there was a listlessness that, all too often, hovered nearby; like a mosquito that droned constantly, but evaded the fly swatter. She gave herself a shake.
Life is good right now, she thought. Why, just last night Cecily
came by and they shared take-out tacos while sitting six feet apart on the porch. Holly did love a good taco!
She noticed a last group of pictures that had been pushed aside and reached for them. College pictures. She flipped through them. Those were the real formative years, Holly thought. At least
for her.
There was her first roommate, Cindy. Cindy had been a barrel of laughs. They were Facebook friends now. There was Holly at a bonfire and Holly at chapel. There were football games and debate teams and boys. Lots of boys. And one or two special boys.
There was a Holly dressed as a pirate on a long-ago Halloween. And dressed as a hippie. No, wait. That wasn’t a costume. That was how she had dressed. Holly studied the image.
The girl in the picture had long brown hair held back by a beaded headband. She wore a tie-dyed T shirt and bell bottom jeans with leather sandals.
She held a poster with the words, “MAKE LOVE NOT WAR!”
Her mother had been scandalized.
Where was that girl now?
Holly regarded the picture for a long time. She carried it into the kitchen and leaned it against the saltshaker. She looked at it while she ate dinner. She carried it to the bathroom and looked at it while she brushed her teeth.
She put it on her bedside table. It was the last thing she saw when she fell asleep and the first thing she saw when she woke up.
Holly spent the next morning returning the pictures to their boxes and filing them away in the closet again. They weren’t going anywhere.
Then she found some cardboard in the garage and some paint. As she carried them to the kitchen table and set to work, she realized she was humming. When was the last time she had hummed?
Holly ate an early dinner that night. At 5:00, she dressed, then went to her bathroom mirror.
The woman in the reflection had short grey hair held back by a Lilly Pulitzer headband. She wore a red polo shirt and white capris with leather sandals.
She held a poster with the words, “BLACK LIVES MATTER!”
Holly topped off her outfit with a blue face mask and, still humming, headed downtown.
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