Troubled Waters by Carolyn Wheat Page B

glossy on my lap, taking care to keep my fingers at the edges so I wouldn’t smudge the shiny surface.
    It was a typical northwest Ohio landscape. Rows and rows of beet greens, as straight and narrow as a Presbyterian conscience, being hoed by hunched-over migrant workers wearing big straw hats. A short distance away, under an elm tree, stood a rickety baby carriage. Next to the carriage, her round face beaming, stood four-year-old Belita Navarro.
    The picture was hand-printed and dried far too hastily on an ancient print-dryer. I knew because I’d printed it, back in the summer of ’69. Printed it and given a copy to Ted Havlicek, who managed to get it published in the local section of the Blade .
    â€œYou kept it.” My voice was a whisper, barely there at all.
    â€œHey, it was my sister’s first published photograph.”
    â€œIt was your sister’s only published photograph.”
    â€œI didn’t know that then, did I?” Ron’s voice was lazy, teasing. “The way you carried that camera everywhere you went, I thought you were going to be the next—I don’t know who. But famous.”
    â€œImogen Cunningham,” I murmured, “or Margaret Bourke-White. Every photo a masterpiece of social significance. The downtrodden as Art with a capital—”
    â€œThere’s something else in the bag,” Ron said.
    I reached in, digging to the bottom before my fingers grasped an envelope. It was business-size, with no return address.
    The handwriting was large, the letters round and childlike, yet written shakily, as though the writer were an elderly woman with the soul of a ten-year-old.
    I glanced at my brother. His face wore an expectant look, but it wasn’t the pleased anticipation he’d shown when I’d looked at the photograph. Instead, he seemed tense, ready for trouble.
    Inside the envelope were four sheets of typing paper written in the same awkward script.
    â€œDear Ron,” the letter began. “Thank you for writing to me. Your letters meant a lot. I feel like I’m starting my life all over again. I have a lot of things to make up for.
    â€œIn the Program, we have this thing called the Ninth Step. You have to make a list of people you’ve harmed and then try to make amends. When I did my Ninth Step, I closed my eyes and remembered all the faces of people I’d hurt when I was drinking. One of those faces was yours. And one was Kenny’s.”
    I stopped reading. “God,” I murmured. “That’s a hell of a thing to do. Think of all the people you’ve harmed. And what does she mean”—I stared directly into my brother’s eyes—“when she says she harmed you?”
    Ron looked away, his cheeks reddening. “That’s another story. Keep reading.”
    â€œI mean, I remember you and she were—”
    â€œKeep reading, Cass.” I opened my mouth, then shut it as I caught a glimpse of something in his eyes that told me to quit while I was ahead.
    I kept reading. “I can’t make amends to Kenny because he’s dead. I can’t tell him I was wrong, that I know he wasn’t the one who sold us out to the cops back in ’69. We all thought he was the traitor who got us busted, but the truth is that the FBI had an informer in our group.”
    The letter fell from my hands. “What is this woman smoking? Is she serious? Does she really believe this crap?”
    Ron nodded. He leaned down and sipped the coffee Zack held under his chin. “Keep—”
    â€œI know, keep reading.” I suited action to words.
    â€œKenny didn’t sell us out, Ron. The cops knew everything before we got to the county fair, but it wasn’t from him. One of us was working for the feds all along, and I’m going to tell everything when I turn myself in.”
    A wave of nausea hit me. I felt hot and cold, sweaty and chilled. Sick to my soul.
    The guilt flu. I