New York City, New York
February 19, 2043
Upon returning to his cramped apartment in the city, Beau chugged his medication and spent most of the remaining day sorting the many boxes from his father's house. He kept his earpiece in as he worked, hoping he would hear back from Izzy with any news on what she could dig up on Anastasia Guillard.
One box was filled with photo albums. Alex, the most organized member of the family, was near obsessed with categorizing and scanning the family's photos and videos onto disks. Some of the older family photos, those Alex and Cleo inherited from their families, pressed to the back of the box.
Johan Family 1965-1986
Beau grabbed a bottle of beer and settled onto the couch. He pulled the heavy vinyl album onto his lap and flipped to a random page. The cardstock was yellowed and no longer sticky. The plastic film that covered the photos peeled apart from the pages, allowing photos to fall toward the spine of the book. Beau took a swig from his beer.
The first page held four photos that Beau estimated were from the sixties. The black and white images seemed foreign to him. He snickered as he saw his grandmother's poufy hairstyle and the thick black frames of his grandfather's glasses.
He continued through the album, finding very few photos of Alex. Flipping through the book was like traveling through time. The people in the photos aged, lost their big hairdos in favor of smooth chignons; crisp black and white photos became grainy and slightly colored.
On the last page of the album, it was the eighties, and Beau's grandmother wore her hair in a tight perm that made her head appear as a giant poof ball. His grandparents were dressed up, he in a tweed suit, she in a diagonally striped dress. His grandmother wrote on the back of the photo "June 7, 1986". A smaller photo was lodged behind this one. Only the corners of it peaked out from behind the image of his grandparents. He pried the photos apart and froze when he saw the once-hidden photo.
A young man with wavy dark hair and bright blue eyes stared directly at the camera, directly at Beau, neither smiling nor frowning. The focus of the boy's eyes was purposeful, as if he were staging a deliberate affront to the camera. He wore the same conservative clothes Alex had worn in a similar professionally taken photo.
Beau recognized the face. It was rounder than he had last seen it, more boyish. He turned the photo over to read the writing on the back of it: "Toby 1986".
Seeing the name affixed to the image in his mind, a confirmation of his first thought, was a sharp kick to his gut. He stared at the photo for a long time, occasionally turning it over to stare at his grandmother's handwriting with the name and date.
He went to his tablet and searched on "Toby" and "Johan". His mouth fell open as he read one of the results, a record of birth filed with the state of Illinois.
Name: Toby Arthur Westra
Date: April 1, 1968 4:15 p.m.
Mother's Name: Lilly Anne (Johan) Westra
Father's Name: Roger William Westra
Beau immediately opened a second tab and did a search on Lilly Anne Johan. She was probably a cousin or other relative of his father.
Lilly Anne Westra (nee Johan) died on August 30, 2012. She was born on March 11, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois to Arthur Johan and Elizabeth Schmidt. In 1967, she married Roger Westra, and gave birth to their only son, Toby, in 1968.
Lilly became a resident of the Deer Ridge Care Center in 1984 and will be remembered fondly by the many residents and staff who knew her.
This simple obituary was linked to a site maintained by the Deer Ridge Care Center of Chicago.
The Deer Ridge Care Center is an assisted facility center for developmentally disabled individuals. We specialize in providing care in a compassionate, caring way.
Alex seldom mentioned his half-sister. He never said her name, but merely referred to her in an off-hand way, as if she rarely occupied his thoughts. When Beau asked Cleo about this half-sister, she answered him by saying that she was "institutionalized". Beau didn't understand what she meant by that at the time, so he let it pass, knowing only that the topic of Alex's sister—half or not—was something about which neither of his parents wished to speak.
He re-read the obituary. Lilly was sixty years old when she died. He wondered what her cause of death was and added her name to his list to be researched later. She was only sixteen when she gave birth to Toby, and fifteen when she married Roger Westra. Shotgun wedding, he thought. He wondered how old Roger Westra was at the time and pulled up a record of his birth.
Name: Roger William Westra
Date: August 3, 1948
That would have made him just shy of twenty when his son was born. Beau found an even more depressing obituary for Roger Westra and an indication that he, too, had been "institutionalized".
Roger W. Westra, an inmate at the Danville Correctional Center, died November 21, 1995 from cardiac arrest.
Beau heaved a heavy sigh and stared at the photo in his hand. The resemblance was undeniable. Toby Westra was Toby Day aka Toby Knight. Being born in 1968 would make him seventy-five, at least forty years older than he appeared. Beau had no explanation for that. His tired mind still grappled with the fact that Toby Westra was his cousin, the son of Alex's mysterious sister.
He created a new search query based on Toby Westra and at the top of the results list was a link from the Cook County Police Department. In a notice dated from 1987—Toby would have been nineteen—he was listed among several other youths wanted in the armed robbery of a convenience store. Beau did an inmate search in Illinois and did not find Toby listed. He could have served time in other states. He tried Nevada, New York, and the District of Columbia and also found nothing.
Beau sat stupefied. When his medical alarm chirped, he went to swallow his pills, and then returned to the kitchen stool to sit and stare at his monitor some more. He had a cousin. He'd met his cousin. None of it was enough to link Toby Westra or Anastasia Guillard to Washington D.C. at the time of his birth. That would make him feel more confident. That would help him be certain that all this wasn't some trick.
An incoming call shattered his concentration as it blasted in his ear. Izzy? He switched on the mic and answered.
"Have you been taking your medication?" Parker spoke with hesitation even though they both knew the answer.
"I just did." Beau deflated and waited for him to continue.
"We need to talk."
"Again?"
"Yes, again. The results of your last blood test are in." Now his voice was somewhat buoyant, as if he were talking to a child he didn't want to scare. "It's not good."
Beau expected Parker would have bad news. He'd been bracing himself for it ever since they last drew his blood. He sighed. "Are you hungry? Want to get something to eat?"
"Now? Sure. But I'm worried about you, man. We've been friends since we were eight years old--"
"Are we gonna eat or not?"
"Yes, but don't think this conversation is over."
"What conversation?"
"Ha! Meet me at the retro diner in an hour?"
Beau groaned. The retro diner with its black vinyl records on the walls and colorful paper menus made him feel ridiculous. He much preferred the quiet efficiency of the table computers, but the vintage surroundings of the diner had a calming effect on Parker. For him it was nostalgia, but for Beau the place was a marketing ploy, neither respectful nor dignified in tone. "Fine," he muttered, unable to disguise his dread.
YOU ARE READING
Goldilocks Forever
Science Fiction*A man desperate to find his biological mother discovers she belonged to a secret society of people infected with a bizarre virus whose disastrous side effects she struggles to overcome.* In the year 2043, Beau Johan's only hope of surviving a termi...
