DWP: the photograph

The Secret Photograph

She first saw it when she was seven, old enough to understand. It was tucked away underneath yellowed papers and frayed cards, locked away in her father's bureau. She found out where her father hid the key quite by accident, when one morning she had gone down early and sat unseen underneath the stairs, the morning darkness aiding in the camouflage.

She vomited when she saw it then became sick, the mere sight traumatizing her and she knew it would be for life.

It was the photograph of a woman giving birth, the head of the baby coming out from between the woman's legs. The image got stuck in her mind, and, combined with the memory of her own mother's agony whenever she gave birth, she had understood at such a young age that having a child was painful. She promised herself she would not have children.


When she was thirty, on a visit to her father's house, she went directly to the bureau, turned the key dangling from the lock, pulled the photograph and asked her father, "Who is this woman?"

Her father grabbed the photograph from her hand and threw it inside the drawer. "A friend paid so much money so that that photograph would not be seen by anyone. I am an honourable man so I am not about to tell you who she is. I was entrusted with a secret and I will pretend until the day I die that you never saw it."

"Tell me who that woman is. I want to know."

"If it will allay your doubts, it is not your mother."


When her father died ten years later, her stepmother handed her an envelope. Inside, among a few other photographs, faded and mildewy, was the photograph. She winced then as she had the first time she saw it. But this time she didn't vomit. There was a short note addressed to her.

And that's how she became the keeper of his secret.