The Rockmore House

29 | Shatter

Friday, November 25th, 2016

Pete was still in my head. So that part of the plan didn't work.

When Eric touched the faded freckles scattered across my cheek, he'd triggered a memory of him. On the day I had dinner with his family, Pete and I had sat on the porch steps with his dog and taken in the summer evening neighborhood sights and sounds. Kids running through a sprinkler and riding bikes, a radio broadcast of a baseball game drifting through an open window. Pete had compared me to Anne of Green Gables and touched the tip of my nose to point out my freckles.

I needed some concrete evidence that the other part of the plan had worked. More than what Paul had told me. I needed to see with my own eyes that my effort wasn't for nothing.

The links I'd saved to the articles about the Conley sisters' disappearance were broken, and when I searched again, I found nothing about Michelle and Elizabeth going missing. That led me to believe that they hadn't disappeared, at least in the way they had before, but I didn't have proof yet that they were both present and accounted for after Thanksgiving in 1993.

When my Google searches turned up nothing, I decided to take the old-fashioned route and head to the public library. There was a copy of every yearbook from Palmer High School in the small local history section and one of them would hopefully give me the proof I needed.

Before I had to be at work at four o'clock, I'd do some research at the library. Then I'd meet up with Kaitlin at Lou's because there was something she said she needed to tell me in person. After that, if Eric was home, I'd stop by the Rockmore House. By the time I arrived at the Shipyard, I hoped to have answers to some of my lingering questions.

The local history section was tucked away in a far, poorly-lit corner of the library, as if the history of Palmer and its surroundings areas was worth hiding. I sat on the floor and ran my finger along the embossed years on the spines of the yearbooks all the way to 1993. Inside the purple and teal cover of the 1993 yearbook, I found Michelle Conley among the faces of the junior class. But the yearbook from 1994, which would have been her senior year and the one that would prove if she'd made it or not, was missing.

I couldn't resist pulling a yearbook from 1951 from the shelf. Because Pete left school after his sophomore year, it would have been the last yearbook in which he might have made an appearance. All of the candid photos had short, quippy captions. Smile, Harvey! Poker faced percussionists! Rembrandts in training! Belles of the ball! When I found Pete's picture, I couldn't suppress my smile. He was cute, with his hair trimmed close, teeth still a little too big for his thin face, and sporting a lopsided grin.

Pete was in the track team photo and on the following page in a solo shot, jumping a hurdle in a sleeveless shirt and white shorts, his face set in determination. Daddy Long Legs!  I spotted him in the back row of the Choral Club group photo and my smile faded. I didn't think I'd ever heard him sing.

I'd fooled myself into thinking I knew this person, who once ran track and sang in a school choir and who knew what else? But I didn't know him at all. Not really. At one point he was real to me, but he'd become an almost mythical being of my own invention that no one else could ever live up to. I closed the yearbook. That was enough.

"Is the 1994 yearbook checked out?" I asked the librarian at the desk. Brenda, according to her name tag. It was the day after Thanksgiving and Brenda's festive holiday sweater indicated that she was already in the Christmas spirit, but her sour expression suggested otherwise.

"The yearbooks are reference materials that aren't available to check out. A few of them have unfortunately gone missing over the years. The only way we can replace the yearbooks is if someone donates them."