Page 30 of Knowing Amelia

Can I read a journal so obviously hidden? What if she never wanted this book to be found?

I set the book in my lap and run my fingers over the soft, worn cover. The alarm clock on the end table reads one a.m. Maybe I should wait until morning to see how I feel about it. “Hmph.” I hang my head. “This is emotionally exhausting.” I toss two of the pictures back inside the box, keeping out the one of the man and woman, side by side. I look at them… his fair hair, her bright eyes—something feels familiar. Then again, anything can become familiar after staring at it for twenty minutes.

With a yawn, I toss it in the box as well. It flips in the air, landing front side down, and that’s when I see the scrawl marks on its back. Why didn’t I look before? I am the worst Nancy Drew ever.

I scramble to retrieve it, reading the messy script.

Seth and me, 1955.

“Huhh!” I gasp.

Seth! Seth!

I’m holding proof that I’m not crazy. I didn’t make anyone up. “Seth,” I say aloud, unable to help myself. I turn the picture back around and look at the man for a moment. I run my fingers along the side of his face. Seth. It’s him.

I set my reservations aside and put the picture down. Exhaling a trembling breath, I pick the journal up, open to the first page, and begin to read.

Fourteen

June 1, 1955

I can’t believe I’m stuck in Ganesworth all summer. What does Dad think I’ll get out of this?

I’m lonely. I’m so lonely. I’ve been here one week and decided I’d absolutely die if I couldn’t spill my feelings somewhere, thus the diary.

Penny is at home and Gladdy got married two weeks ago. At least Daddy let me go to the wedding before he sent me off to this dejected place. I don’t understand how working at Uncle Herb’s store will help me forget about college. It’s not as if he doesn’t have the money to send me!

I’m so lonely!

Penny’s cousin went to college. It sounds wonderful. Culture and science, and the literature! Oh, the reading I could accomplish there. But Daddy says the only women who go to college are the ones planning on ending up old maids. And I should focus on finding a husband.

Who can think of men when there are books to be read?

I’m sure I’ll have nothing to write of. Nothing happens in Ganesworth!

Amelia

“Who can think of men when there are books to be read?” I smother down a giggle. I never would have guessed Amelia was capable of this kind of passion.

She thought this town, this Ganesworth, was lonely. How on earth did she survive Rendezvous?

I pick up the picture of Seth and the woman—I guess it could be Amelia. This box is hers, this journal is hers, and she was the one crying over Seth. I contemplated so many times, wondering if he was a friend, a pastor, or possibly a baby she lost. I still don’t have an answer, but I do have a face, and that feels a lot like something.

I touch my finger to the woman’s pretty face. I’ve never described Amelia as beautiful before, but the woman in the picture is smiling joyfully. She is beautiful.

I retrieve one of the albums belonging to Earl and plop it on top of the bed. I study a photo of Amelia in a rocking chair, holding my infant father. She’s scrawled both their names on the bottom of the Polaroid. I hold the two pictures side by side, Seth with the woman and Amelia with Dad. No doubt about it, this photo is of Seth and a young Amelia. Strangely, she looks a decade older in this photo with my dad as a baby. And yet, Dad was born in 1956.

“No, that can’t be.” Only one year difference? I turn the picture over and read Amelia’s handwritten information once more: Seth and me, 1955. One year later? Maybe a little more. I’m not sure how old Dad is here. Still, that’s it? How could she have gained so many years, so much sullenness, in such a short time? The passion I read in that first journal entry doesn’t exist in this photo of her with my infant father.

Yawning, I stand and stretch my legs. I lay Amelia’s journal back in the box, along with everything else. I tuck her treasures in the guest room closet under the shoeboxes already there. Something inside of me needs to hide her things. She took care to conceal them, so I will too.

Walking to the bedroom window, I push it up as far as it will go. Fresh air washes into the room, fluttering over the bare skin of my arms and cheeks. Without a screen to block my way, I poke my head outside and look at my elm. It stretches high into the black night sky, its bark arms pointing upward in a tangled, swarthy way. The starry background of the open Rendezvous skies makes for the perfect canvas. I take a deep breath, the air smooth, like a cold glass of water. Rendezvous is quiet—no cars, no people, only crickets singing their lullaby.

“Hello, Liv.”

I shoot up, surprised by the sudden company, and knock my skull on the window frame above me.

Logan peeks his head out the second-floor window of his house.