In the Image of Grace (4 page)

Besides that I didn’t find anything that seemed
relevant.

I went back to the page with all the search results.
On the top of the computer screen it said pictures of Dr. Reginald
Schlobohm, so I clicked on what looked like a group photo of a
bunch of scientists because they all had on lab coats. I read
underneath the photo and it said 2005 bio-engineering research
conference, nothing very exciting. I scanned the picture and found
my father standing in front with a smug look on his face.

I went back and looked at a couple other pictures and
found nothing very compelling. Then in the search box I typed in
photos of Dr. Reginald Schlobohm and the year Elizabeth was born. I
found one that was from a medical journal. It had all the
researchers from our father’s university. I found my father. Then I
found somebody I wasn’t expecting. It looked like a very young Mr.
Carl. I thought Mr. Carl was only twenty-five or something, boy was
I off. Perhaps I was wrong, but I needed that picture to show my
sisters. It wasn’t any proof of our mother, but it showed that lies
were being told.

I got up and went to look for the shaggy haired kid.
I found him shelving books in the fiction K-L aisle. “Um, excuse
me,” I called to him once again.

He looked up and smiled at me from underneath his
hair.

“I need a picture from the computer,” I said thinking
I probably sounded very stupid. I was probably the only teenager
who couldn’t print a picture from the internet. He stopped what he
was doing and followed me. I sat in my seat and he bent over and
showed me what to do. “That too seems pretty simple,” I said
noticing how easy it was.

“It is.” He peered at me through his lenses. “You
know, I’m just here to shelve the books.”

“Oh,” I uttered thinking how I kept pestering
him.

“It prints over there.” He pointed to the printer at
the other end of the row of computers.

“Well, thank you for assisting me,” I replied
thinking I should be courteous since he did help me.

“Are you from this decade?”

“Excuse me?” It took me a second to realize what he
was referring to.

“You’re too polite. It’s not normal.”

“Really?” I was a little confused.

“N seriously, you’ve never used the internet
before.”

“I guess that does seem a little peculiar. Let’s just
say I don’t get out much.”

“You’re telling me.” He looked up at the wall where a
large brass clock hung. “Well, I got to go finish up before the
bell rings.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded and walked off.

I picked up my bag and went and got my picture from
the printer. I looked at it and underneath in tiny print
everybody’s name was listed row by row. For Mr. Carl it read,
“Intern; Carl Williams.” I folded the paper in half and put it in a
zipper pocket on the inside of my messenger bag.

………………………………

Isabelle, Clarissa and I all sat on my bed. I pulled
out the paper with the picture on it. “I don’t know what this means
to us or if it will help at all, but look at this,” I said holding
out the paper.

Clarissa took it from me and scanned her eyes over
it. “Okay there’s our father. Much younger father and wait, is that
who I think it is?”

“What,” Isabelle asked snagging the paper from
Clarissa’s hands. She squinted at it. “Is that Mr. Carl?” She
sounded perplexed.

“Sure is.”

Clarissa twirled the end of her hair around her
finger. She had it pulled up in a pony tail. “So he’s way older
than we thought,” she said speculating. “And he seemed to omit this
part of his life.” She stopped and looked at me. “But why?”

“I don’t know. Why wouldn’t our father or Mr. Carl
tell us that they work together or Mr. Carl works for our father or
whatever?” I asked looking at Clarissa.

“I have the slightest idea,” Clarissa said stretching
her legs out and sticking her feet on me.

“Neither do I, but they’ve been lying.”

Isabelle studied the picture. “Did you really look at
this?” She asked.

“I guess, why?”

“See this woman in the middle row,” she observed
pointing at the picture with her pinky, an odd habit that she had.
For some reason she didn’t have faith in her pointer finger. “Who
does she look like?”

I looked at the picture and then I took it from her.
“Holy crap I didn’t even notice. Does she kind of resemble us?”

“What!” Clarissa shrieked snatching the paper from
me.

And Isabelle was right. The woman in the middle row,
second from the end on the left hand side looked like us but older.
If you did one of those age progression things on us you probably
would have gotten a picture of that woman. And what was the luck
that some random picture I pulled off the internet would have a
woman who looked like us, oh, and not to mention she knew our
father. On the bottom it said her name was Grace Fernando. I
thought it was the loveliest name in the world. She had the same
Asian facial features as us and pale white skin. We didn’t know if
it was a coincidence that she resembled us or if it was more, but I
knew my mission the next day during study hall was to look up Grace
Fernando.

…………………………….

That evening I had another dream. The screaming was
there and so was the darkness, but this time it was damp like a
basement and somebody else was with me. I think it was Elizabeth
maybe. That’s all I was able to recall from it and I was once again
left with the lingering screaming and anxiety.

I was really enjoying school, despite the lingering
anxiety from my dreams and everything else. It was our third day. I
didn’t really talk to anybody, but it was nice just being around
other people. In literature that day, Lawrence, formerly Mr. Russo,
talked to me a lot before class and even after class. I just nodded
in response because he was going on and on about some science
fiction movie characters and stuff. He told me how he took a quiz
online and he was most similar to the character of Gwar Czar or
something and it totally surprised him because he really didn’t
think he was like that. I just nodded some more.

During study hall I went to the library again to use
the internet. I needed to find out more about Grace Fernando. All
the computers under the windows were taken and I didn’t know if
there was any more anywhere. Shaggy hair kid was there again. He
was sitting behind the circulation desk staring at a computer
screen. He had the tip of his pointer finger in his mouth and
looked like he was deeply concentrating. His eyes were fixed on the
screen and didn’t seem to move. I didn’t want to interrupt him, but
I really needed to use the internet again.

“Excuse me,” I said softly.

He took his finger out of his mouth and held it up,
so I patiently waited. About ten seconds later he looked up. “Oh,
it’s you again.”

“And I see that it is you.”

He smiled. His right bicuspid, or canine tooth if you
will, caught the edge of his bottom lip. “What did you need?”

“Are there any other computers besides the ones over
there?”

He looked in the direction of the computers. “No
that’s all. You know you can sign in at the computer lab if there’s
not a class in there.”

“Oh, I don’t have time for that now. This is very
important.”

“Research paper?”

“Something like that.” I paused and looked back at
the computers and hoped somebody had gotten up. “Shoot.” I drummed
my fingers on the circulation desk.

“Need to use the internet?”

I nodded.

“Do you want me to look something up for you?”

I just wanted to jump over that counter and give him
a hug. “That would be fantastic.”

I asked him to search the name Grace Fernando. Barely
anything came up besides blocked x-rated sites. My face instantly
dropped.

“Well, who is she. Is this for a paper?”

“No,” I said. “It’s somebody I’m looking for, I
think.”

“You think?” He asked me pushing up his glasses with
his pointer finger.

“Oh, I honestly don’t know.”

“Do you live near a library? They have computers
there too, so if you have to do more searching.”

“I think I do, but that might not work either.”

“What going to the library?”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” I replied in a
very sullen tone.

“Is it because you need help? I could meet you there
if ya want me to, to help you out,” he volunteered leaning back in
his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I guess I could make something up and phone home.
Would it be possible for my sisters to come along?”

“Stuck babysitting, is that what it is?”

“Oh no, they’re teenagers also, but this pertains to
all of us.”

“Okay,” he snickered bobbing his head. “My name is
Jeremy by the way.”

“Well nice to meet you. I am Charlotte Ann
Schlobohm.”

He was snickering again.

I pursed my lips together. I knew what he was trying
to contain his laughter about.

“Seriously, where are you from?” He asked.

We made arrangements to meet by the main entrance and
we would all take the bus together. He said he lived in that
direction anyways, so it wasn’t putting him out or anything. He
claimed he really didn’t mind. I had to call Ms. Dunderfeltz and
tell her we wouldn’t be home right away. Generally we were expected
to be home right after school. Ms. Dunderfeltz was to buzz us in
and then we were to stay in and do our homework all night. We
didn’t have house keys or anything like that.

……………………………….

Isabelle and Clarissa were waiting for me at the main
entrance. I quickly told them that we were going to the library
with Jeremy. They knew what it was for, so they were okay with it.
I also told them that I called Ms. Dunderfeltz.

I saw Jeremy walking down the hall towards us. He
slouched even when he walked. He did a double take when he saw the
three of us.

“Triplets?” He asked.

“No, we’re actually each a year apart,” I revealed
then introducing him to Isabelle and Clarissa. The four of us left
and walked across the expansive front lawn of the school towards
the bus stop. We waited for traffic to clear and crossed the
street. Our school sat at the corner of an intersection for two
busy streets, so there were always cars and trucks and such
whizzing by. There were quite a few people at the bus stop, so when
the first bus pulled up most of them jammed onto it and we had to
wait for the next one. Luckily we only had to wait a couple extra
minutes.

We all stood in the back of the bus, there weren’t
any available seats. I held onto the pole and looked out the window
as we went over a river, passed a boy’s catholic school, a strip
mall, a Bewel grocery store and eventually reached our stop. Jeremy
pulled the dingy string, but the bus kept going.

“Hey,” he screamed up to the driver. The driver
didn’t stop, so we ended up getting off at the next bus stop and
walking back in which the direction we came to get to the library.
We found a table in the back of the library, threw all our stuff on
it and Jeremy took us over to the computers. He sat down in the
chair in front of the computer and we grabbed chairs and sat around
him.

“Okay,” I said. “Jeremy and I just typed in her name
earlier and nothing much came up, so what else can we search
under.”

“How about the university,” Clarissa suggested. She
had taken to wearing her hair up in a ponytail. Her small way of
showing some individuality in our new found world.

“What about Mr. Carl too because he had to of known
her, they were in the picture together,” I added trying to make
some sense out of the little bit of information that we had.

“That picture you printed yesterday,” Jeremy inquired
turning in his seat and looking at us.

“Yes,” I responded.

“So why are we searching for these people?” Jeremy
asked raising an eyebrow.

I don’t think any of us wanted to tell him what we
were doing or any of our family secrets, but we were going to have
to give him some information since he was helping us. “Well, we’re
trying to find out information about our mother,” I told him.

“Like what?”

“Who she is, where she is, anything,” I vowed hearing
myself sound sad when I said it.

“So, you don’t know her at all?” Jeremy asked
scratching his neck.

“No, nothing, not even a name,” Clarissa chirped.
“We’ve never had a chance to look before.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

“Why yes it does,” Clarissa responded.

We tried to find information about Grace Fernando
under the university and there was absolutely nothing, so then we
started to look for Mr. Carl, Dr. Carl Williams as we found out on
the university website. He was an associate professor and also a
researcher for the university. We took down the university address
and found a course schedule and decided that perhaps the next day
after school we were going to have to give him a little visit.

Our only problem was getting back home before Ms.
Dunderfeltz left for the day. We probably wouldn’t make it. We
needed a key. We needed somebody to go and copy the house key for
us. I figured maybe Jeremy could help. All Jeremy did was to offer
me computer support and we were sucking him right in.

“Can you do us a favor?” I asked him as we were
packing up to leave.

“Whaddya need,” he answered pushing his glasses up on
his nose.

“Come home with us and wait outside while we sneak
you a key and then go and run to the hardware store, copy it and
bring it back.” I bit my lip and looked up at him realizing what I
said sounded totally crazy.

He barely knew us yet we were asking for so much. I
knew we were also going to have to reveal more of our lives to him.
So this is what I told him. I told him that we had a crazy
overprotective father that never let us out of the house, well
maybe not overprotective, just crazy and it seemed to finally dawn
on him that we needed socialization, or at least that’s what we
thought because before we had a private tutor who was turning out
to be someone totally different and since we were supposed to
always be in the house we had no keys and our father never spoke of
our mother and now that we had some freedom we wanted to find
answers. I skipped out the part about Elizabeth.