THE SMASHED GLASS

Of course it was too fantastic, but while Homer followed his will-o’-the-wisp theory, Mary tried to make sense of the articles in hand. They were solid objects with nothing wispy about them.

So while poor Homer was seized by fits of sneezing in the bedroom, Mary took the two little photograph cases out of her desk drawer, set them on the mantel side by side, and folded her arms on the mantelpiece to study them once again.

They looked back at her gravely, Ida all alone in the left-hand case, Ida with one of her husbands in the case on the right. Was it husband number one, Seth Morgan, or husband number two, Alexander Clock?

The smashed glass looked terrible, and it occurred to Mary that the sharp splinters might scratch the precious pictures. Impulsively she picked up the little case, fastened it shut with its tiny hook and slid it into her bag.

At Vanderhoof’s Hardware, they would know what to do. Those good people were old hands at repairing broken windowpanes. They would replace the smashed glass in a jiffy. And then Ida and Seth/Alexander would be safe and sound. They would gaze serenely out of their little case at every succeeding generation of the family from now to the end of time.

But before driving off to the hardware store on the Milldam, she put her head in the bedroom door and said, “Oh, my poor dear.”

Homer was convinced that his cold was the fault of a student who had come to a conference wheezing and blowing his nose. He had handed the idiot boy a box of tissues, but by then, of course, it was too late. The powerful explosions had already sprayed their hooked germs isotropically in all directions, and they had landed on walls, ceiling and floor and attached themselves to Homer from head to foot.

“Can I get you anything while I’m out?”

“More tissues,” groaned Homer, mopping his nose. “Oh, God, I’m going to flunk that kid, I swear I am.”

Vanderhoof’s Hardware had occupied the same premises on the Milldam for as long as Mary could remember. As a child she had reached up to the tall cupboards with their drawers of latches and screen hooks while her father bought a hacksaw or a bag of tenpenny nails from Grandfather Vanderhoof. Emersons had still been living on Lexington Road when Great-Grandfather Vanderhoof had come from Holland to found the family business.

Now it was his great-grandson who sold tenpenny nails at the same old store, along with electric fans and lawn mowers, coffeemakers and paring knives, outdoor grills and lawn chairs, hammers, paint and turpentine, who cut keys and repaired window screens and handled a glass cutter with nimble precision.

“I’m glad you guys are still here,” said Mary, taking the little case from her bag. “The town has changed so much. I mean, except for you people, it’s all boutiques and gift shops now.”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” said the young proprietor. “The only reason we’re still here is, we own the building. All those other people are paying fantastic rents. Well, what have we got here?” He took the case from Mary and looked at the faces under the broken glass. “No problem. Want to wait? It’ll take me five minutes.”

Mary watched as he got to work, gently prying the gilded frames loose with the narrow blade of a screwdriver. “Funny,” he said. “This one doesn’t fit very well. This man here, his side sort of sticks up.”

“So it does,” said Mary, leaning over to look.

“There now, you see why? There’s another guy underneath.” He showed her the buried photograph. “You want me to put them back the same way?”

Seth

A stranger’s face looked out at Mary, but in the space below his likeness, someone had written a single word.

“Oh, no.” Mary pulled off her scarf and wrapped it around the second photograph. “Just put the top one back.”

“Well, okay, if you say so. It’ll fit better anyway”

Mary watched him cut two new squares of glass and fit them over the faces of Ida and Alexander Clock. In her bag, tucked away securely in its deepest recess, lay the secret photograph.

As a loyal wife, Ida had displayed to public view the likeness of her second husband, but she had not wanted to forget her first. Whatever shame had been attached to First Lieutenant Seth Morgan of the Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, his wife had not abandoned him.

Climbing back in the car, Mary had a crazy notion. She opened her bag, unwrapped Seth’s picture and turned it over. The other side was smeared with faint brown streaks.

At home she found Homer fast asleep. She closed his door softly and went to her study to look for the photocopies she had brought home from the Harvard Archives library. She found the pictures of Mills and Mudge and, with them, the nearly blank page bearing only Seth’s name and his regiment at the bottom—plus a few random streaks of paste.

If they matched the streaks on the back of the long-buried picture, it would mean that Seth’s photograph had not been removed by his classmates in disgust; it had been taken—perhaps stolen?—by his devoted wife.

Mary put the photocopy and the photograph on the table and compared the two sets of streaks. They were the same in reverse.

There were stirrings in the bedroom, mutterings and soft whistles. Mary found Homer sitting up in bed. He was obviously feeling better. He was amusing himself with the old-fashioned stereoscope they had bought from Bart in Gettysburg, fitting one card after another into the wire holder.

He glanced up at her long enough to say, “Did they fix the glass on those pictures?”

“Oh, yes, and you’ll never guess what turned up.”

But Homer was back in the sepia world of the 1860s. Mesmerized, he said, “Here, look at this one.”

Mary put the stereoscope up to her face and adjusted it until the two faded brown images jumped together. “It looks so real. What is it, that big stump?”

“Washington Monument, half-finished. Here, try this one.”

This time it was the Capitol building, its round dome half-hidden under a network of timber.

“Wonderful.” Mary gazed at the three-dimensional thrust of the scaffolding. “It’s as though nineteenth-century Washington were popping right up into our own space and time.”

Homer handed her another card. “This one’s the best, the Patent Office.”

“Oh, yes,” whispered Mary, awestruck by the blocky effect of the enormous building with its templed portico. “But you know, Homer, I’m wrong. It isn’t as though the past were coming into the present. It’s more like being invited back, as though we were joining the woman in the picture.”

“What woman?”

Mary handed him the stereoscope. “See her there on the sidewalk? A woman looking up?”