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Wyatt turned to look at her. “I remember one of his stories was about the Spring Fling.”
Carly clapped her hands. “That’s probably it. Hopefully there are pictures.”
He continued to scroll. A page appeared with group pictures. The larger the group, the harder it was to make out faces. Some of them had identifying names at the bottom. Others didn’t. When they landed on a couple of pictures from the Spring Fling, Wyatt examined them, trying to look for a young man who looked like his grandfather.
“There,” he pointed. “I think that’s him.”
Everyone leaned closer.
Sam Davis as a young man had slicked-back hair, wore a blazer and tie, and he had his arm around a girl with short bobbed hair and a wide smile. He wasn’t looking at the camera though. He was looking at his date as if the sun rose and set with her.
“Is that Susan?” Carly asked. “It has to be her.”
Anita’s heart stuttered. If this was Susan at Sam’s side, then she was definitely real. What was Wyatt feeling right now?
He blew out a breath. “Let’s see if we can match her up with pictures of the other Susans.” He used the machine to print off a copy of the page with the Spring Fling photo. A few moments later, Wyatt had Carly hold it up as he scrolled to the page numbers that correlated with the girls named Susan.
“That looks like her,” Carly said when he arrived at a page with a photo captioned “Glee Club.”
Wyatt held the printed page close to the microfiche screen. There was no doubt it was a match.
“Susan Martin,” he said. “It looks like she was a real person.”
No one spoke for a couple of moments, then Carly said, “What’s a glee club?”
Maggie had the answer. “A choir run by the students. It was an extracurricular club, so it was volunteer and not part of classes.”
Wyatt selected the option to print off the glee club page. “We might as well find the other photos of her, as well as those of Gramps.”
As the printer rattled away, he stared for a long moment at the Spring Fling image, while Carly asked Maggie more questions.
Anita touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He snapped his gaze up as if being pulled out of a fog. “Yeah...it’s just surreal, I guess. Gramps isn’t making things up. It’s complicated too. I mean, I thought my grandmother was the love of his life.”
“Maybe she was,” Anita said. “Most of us have relationships before settling on our true love.” Her face felt hot. “Or...sometimes the first love doesn’t work out.”
Wyatt gazed at her for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right. Just because Gramps cared about Susan doesn’t mean he didn’t love my grandma.”
By the time the pages had finished printing, Maggie’s group was ready to be transported back to the senior center, where they’d share a meal together. “It was wonderful meeting all of you,” she said. “I hope to see you again sometime.”
Anita rose to walk her out of the room. “How often do you come here?”
“The excursion is every Monday, but I come maybe once or twice a month.” Maggie grasped her hand. “Lovely to meet you and your daughter. Wyatt is a nice man too.”
“Wonderful to meet you as well.”
Maggie smiled and patted Anita’s arm, then she moved away, joining the senior group.
She had a strange feeling as Maggie walked away as if she’d just said goodbye to an old friend. But that was impossible—they’d only met an hour ago.
SAM WASN’T EXPECTING A PHONE call on a Monday evening so late. When Wyatt called him, it was usually right after the dinner hour, but now it was eight p.m. Who could be ringing him now? He knew it wasn’t Paula. She either called in the morning on one of her shift breaks or not at all. And really, there was no one else in his life who’d call. Sure, he had a visit once in a while from Charles Benson, his longtime neighbor. But Sam happened to know the man was on a vacation with his kids and grandkids.
“Hello? Who’s this?” he said into the receiver after picking it up. Might as well get to the point.
“Gramps?”
“Wyatt,” he said, relief running through him.
