Secrets and Revelations (Bellingwood #4) by Diane Greenwood Muir Page A

reached over and put his finger on the first page to turn it and reveal the photos.
    "Okay," Polly said, "Here we go."
    She smiled as she recognized the first few pictures. They were familiar pictures of her as an infant, the first had been taken at the hospital.
    "I was a pretty cute baby," she said, rubbing her finger over the photo where the hair on her forehead lay.
    The birth details were all there, neatly handwritten. The other photos on the page were of her in her car seat on the ride home and then in her crib. Of course, Henry had never seen any of these, so he took them in as she read the notes. She turned the next page and there were more familiar pictures. A happy young family with their new little baby. Polly hadn't considered who might have taken those photographs, but now she realized it must have been Ruth Ann.
    A few pages later, she saw a picture of her mother and another woman, laughing and playing with a baby on a big white quilt on the front lawn of her home. She'd never seen this picture. Her mother was leaning back on an elbow, with a hand on Polly's back while the other woman, Ruth Ann, was on her stomach facing the camera. They were both in shorts and tiny tops and Henry laughed and pointed at the very voluptuous cleavage the woman was presenting to the photographer.
    "Wow," he said. "She was sharing!"
    "I don't know if I want to see any more pictures if this is going where I think it's going," Polly said and began to shut the book.
    "Let's not make any assumptions. She wouldn't have given this to you if that was all there was to it."
    The three adults had considered themselves photographers. They took photos of each other with Polly at every opportunity. There were many more pictures that Polly recognized from her baby book and others that included Ruth Ann and her mother, Ruth Ann and her father , and in all of them, everyone was laughing and smiling. When Polly pulled herself up the first time, there were the two women sitting back on their legs holding their hands out as she stood with her hands on a small, wooden step stool.
    There were pictures of Ruth Ann bathing Polly and there was a series of pictures from the zoo in Des Moines. Both women had gone down and made a day of it, posing with Polly in front of different animals. The two had traveled around quite a bit, taking Polly to see different sights in the area. There were pictures of them at the carousel in Story City sprinkled throughout the pages, riding with Polly and finally as she got old enough to sit up, standing beside her.
    Polly had no memory of tho se times, instead remembering a time much time when her mother had taken her and watched her ride around and around. That had been a couple of years before her mother died and Polly had taken a picture from the back of the horse. In it, a wistful woman watched. Polly wondered what her mother was thinking about that day. Did she miss her friend? Did she know then that she was sick?
    She sighed and Henry wrapped an arm around her, "What are you thinking about?" he asked.
    "My mom and another trip to the carousel. It's nothing."
    Then Polly came upon pictures of them at the airport with her mother raising the little girl’s arm to wave at an airplane through the window.
    "Look at this!" she said. "My dad was flying away somewhere."
    She jumped up and ran into her bedroom, returning with the old lock box. "It's in here."
    Polly pulled a few things out and handed them into Henry's waiting hands. She stopped, "See, some of these pictures are exactly the same as the ones in the scrapbook.” A cleaner version of a picture of her parents together, her mother lifting her left foot and leaning into her father's arms was in the scrapbook. The yellowed and well-worn copy from the lock box was one of Polly's favorites.
    She turned it over, knowing what it said by heart, "My best friend, my lover, my heart and soul." Her father had scribbled a heart with the letters B+E for Barbara and Everett inside