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It was now about 5:00 and I was beat. I desperately wanted to avoid talking with Simba today – I needed at least an evening to collect my thoughts and figure out how to approach this fragile woman. This was the type of strategy session that Ralph and Fanny loved, but I didn’t want to intrude on their Friday night dinner service – usually their busiest night. I was not even remotely a cook, but I figured I could stop by and man the dishwasher or other menial chores, and then they might be done sooner. But even so, they would probably be way too tired despite my help. I worried about Ralph and Fanny. Running a restaurant, no matter how casual and homey, was a physically demanding job, and they might be reaching their endpoint. I had stopped by on other busy nights and I could tell that they really appreciated my help. I redialed Simba’s cell phone, and was relieved when it went straight to voicemail. I wanted to hold her off at least until tomorrow, so I suggested that we meet at the Starbucks that was kitty corner across from the park where her brother Henry would probably be playing his Saturday morning bridge.  Continue reading →

Chapter 33

I left the car in the visitor’s parking lot and crossed the busy street to Sylvia Wister’s studio. The store front windows featured a display of her Family Photography Project with a description of the program. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the program provided an opportunity for students to take pictures with their incarcerated parents. For those in the minimum security wing, the families were grouped together, kids sitting on the laps of their parents in prison garb. For more serious offenders, there were more creative poses of a father’s face reflected in the security glass as a child sat on the other side of the divider looking in. The featured picture in the center of the display showed two families together, a correction officer’s and an inmate’s, a bizarre picture of togetherness. But the most striking thing about the display was the style of the pictures – they looked uncannily like Goddard Todd’s photography exhibit. I wondered if Sylvia had actually taken Goddard’s Sib and Self pictures – after all they were decidedly different from his more mundane travel photos. Perhaps he had stayed in touch with Sylvia Wister all these years, and came to this studio every year with his sister to have a Christmas card taken. My instincts also told me that this is where Goddard and Dessa were probably hiding out. Continue reading →