About Granddad Irwin...

         “Okay, Sandra, why are we up here again?” Valerie asks.
         I cough, waving away dust that we have just disturbed. Cobwebs fill some of the more obscure corners of the attic, and grime covers windows where no eyes had looked out of in ages.
         “I told you already: I want to see if I can find any information on Granddad’s first wife, Amelia.”
         “Weird that ancestry.com found that information.”
         “I know, right? And when I asked Gram about it, she had no idea who they were talking about. She was really surprised.”
         “Was she upset?” She maneuvers between cardboard boxes that have been dumped in random arrangements between forgotten furniture and hanging racks of old clothes. “What are we looking for?”
         “Not sure exactly. Maybe an old box or two labeled of Granddad’s effects? And no, she wasn’t really upset. Just surprised. But you know her, always one to take things in stride. According to her, Granddad was 14 years older than her when they met, and he was already in his late forties. When she thought about it, she said that it made sense that he might have been married before.”
         “What about you? How do you feel about it?”
         This time I am not so quick to answer. “I’m not sure. I think I’m disappointed.”
         “Oh?”
         I shrug. “Why wouldn’t he tell us about something like that? You were married to a whole other person for who knows how long, and you don’t say anything? I dunno. It feels…dishonest.”
         Valerie places a hand gently on my shoulder. “Sandra, people have relationships all the time. They date…they get married and divorced. I don’t know if that marks the end of the world.”
         “True enough, but if that’s the case, why not tell us about it? Why hide it from us? From Gram?” A thought suddenly strikes me and my eyes go wide. “What if he was married at the same time as Gram? What if he was a polygamist? This was Utah, after all, and back in the day, the idea of polygamists were not so uncommon.”
         Valerie throws up her hands. “Oh my god, Sandra, calm down. Now you’re reaching. Gram might not have known that he was married before her, but she certainly would have known if he was married to another woman at the same time as they were. Come on.”
         I look around the dusty attic and by chance, happen upon a framed photo of Granddad Irwin and Grammy Mae. They are sitting on the front porch of a house they owned when they lived in Utah. Val and I are in the forefront of the photo, in our swimsuits, playing with a water hose. Or perhaps more accurately, Val is playing with the water hose, spraying me while I run, trying to avoid the spray. Our grandparents watch us, smiling.
         I caress the photo; really, I am stoking a memory, remembering the warmth of the day, the fun of our play, the affection of our grandparents. “Maybe you’re right,” I suggest, though grudgingly. “I guess I’m just…worried.”
         Val tilts her head at me. “How much would finding out about this woman really change your opinion of Grandad? I mean, really, at its core?”
         “Possibly a lot.”
         “Really?” She reaches for the photo in my hand, brushing away some of the dust.          “Would that change your memory of this moment here? Your perception of it?”
         “Well, not that, but—“
         “Okay, wait. What about the time he taught you to ride a bike when Dad couldn’t? Or the summer he took us to the Grand Canyon? That was a big deal for him, you know.”
         “I know, but—“
         “Okay, so wait a minute. Before you go jumping to five thousand conclusions, let’s do two things. One, let’s not confuse the man we know with the man we didn’t. Probably he had his reasons for keeping silent about it. That doesn’t change who he was to us.”
         “And two?”
         “Let’s see if we can something about this woman. We don’t know anything about her either, so what’s the point to pre-judge?”
         Where I am always running on the highs and lows of emotion, Valerie has always been the clear-headed logical one. Of course, as her sibling, I have always been loath to admit that.
         I roll my eyes in mock exasperation, but actually, her words do calm me down. “Fine, okay.” I sigh broadly. “You might be right.”
         Valerie flashes me a wicked grin. “Oh honey, you know I’m right.” But she leans in and gives me a quick hug and then gestures broadly with an open hand. “Alright, well, where do you want to start?”
         “You take the left side, and I’ll take the right.”
         “Gotcha.”
         We lose track of time. We rummage through vintage clothing, shaking dust off hats before trying them on and making funny faces. We giggle at photographs from our childhood, where the images are faded and yellow, but still elicit fond memories. We marvel at ancient gadgets and gizmos from eras long-forgotten, pondering their use and their efficacy. We disturb spiders, move boxes, and open trunks, all the while looking for any insights to the mysterious Amelia that my grandfather had married almost twenty years before he met my grandmother.
         “Hey!” Valerie call out. “I think I found something.”
         Pushing a few boxes aside and stepping around a curious pile of shoes, I make my way to her. She has found and opened yet another trunk, which yielded an old cigar box. “What’s inside?”
         “All kinds of stuff. There are some pictures, a newspaper clippings…some documents of some sort…a couple of letters.” She shuffles through the contents, then takes executive action. “Here, you take the photos and these documents, I’ll look through the letters.”
         “Okay.” Valerie separates the letters from the rest of the cigar box contents and hands me the former, which I begin to shuffle through. There are several pictures, clearly taken at different moments in time, but show the same two people in essentially identical poses in each. A man standing behind and to the left of a young woman, seating in front of him. The man, of course, is my grandfather. The skin of his face is unmarred by the signs of age, and his hair is the darkest shade of black I have ever seen him have, but I know it is him by the mole that sits near his left eye.
         The woman seated next to him has broad features: widely spaced eyes, and full lips that I imagine would spread into a huge smile if she were happy. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, and she is dressed smartly in a black dress, with sensible shoes, and a lace shawl draped around her shoulders. I flip the photo over and strike gold: in a tight cursive there is a caption that reads “Irwin and Amelia Abraham. May 1959, Brooklyn, NY.”
         “Wow, that’s her!” I elbow Valerie and give her the picture.
         “Hey, does she look pregnant to you?”
         I take the picture back from her for closer inspection. “You know, I think so.” I pause, mulling over the implications of this new development. “Does that mean we have like a half-aunt or half-uncle out in the world somewhere? Maybe some half-cousins?”
         Valerie’s eyes go wide. “You think?”
         I shrug and try not to panic. “What else is in the box? Do those papers say anything?”
         Valerie returns her attention to the documents in her hand. “Well, first there’s this.”
         She passes to me a yellowed form, which turns out to be marriage license issued by the state of New York. The date says October 12, 1958 and shows the parties listed as Irwin Joseph Abraham and Amelia Shaw Johnson. According to the paper, my grandfather was only twenty years old, and Amelia was seventeen.
         “They were young,” Valerie murmurs.
         I nod absently. “They were. Is there anything else?”
         She shuffles the papers, moving to the letter. She scans it quickly, and then says, “Listen.”
         Dearest Irwin:
         I would like to thank you for this kindness you have done for me. In this day and age, it’s almost unfathomable that I would be pregnant without first being married, but I don’t think I can explain to anyone the horrific circumstances around this pregnancy…
         Your friendship and concern has been nothing short of a gift to me, and without it, I know I would have long ago fallen into despair. You have given me strength and comfort, and I am better for it, as will be this child. That he or she will carry your name if not your blood is invaluable to me beyond measure; this child will never be a bastard, nor will anyone ever know how this child even came to be. Whatever cruelties that he or she will face in this life, (I pray they will be few and far between!) at least this child will have the benefit of being a whole child, fully legitimate in the eyes of all those to whom these things matter.
         Although this is goodbye, please know that you will never be forgotten. You will be forever dear to me, and I know that I will think of you often and fondly, and with the deepest gratitude. We will meet again someday, if not this lifetime, then the next.
         Yours,
         Amelia.
         “Wow,” Valerie whispers. “Is it me, or do we now have even more questions than answers?”
         I take the letter from her and turn it gently in my hands. “Definitely more questions. But I tell you what, seems like this marriage was some kind of favor, right? And done pretty selflessly, given the nature of this letter.”
         “I know,” Valerie agrees. “But why did she leave him? What does that say about her?”
         “I don’t know. We don’t have information to judge her, I guess. But it does affirm something about Granddad Irwin.”
         “What?”
         To my surprise, I find myself a little choked up. “He was a great man.”