Crisis of Identity

It has been three days since my return from Queensland and mum’s delicious roast dinner. By now, I should’ve been settling back into my work routine, after the holidays. Should’ve been.

For the 3rd night in a row now I find myself waking around 2am staring at the ceiling for hours. I have no idea why. Something is triggering my conscious brain to waken.

I’d experienced similar bouts of prolonged insomnia in the weeks after we lost dad, which I put down to my grieving preventing me from any restful sleep, but this is different.

While watching the rotations of the ceiling fan, recollections of my encounters with Dawes flashed into my mind. Comments he made still continue to resonate.

There were times during my holiday that Dawes had me questioning my roots. There is no doubt my resemblance to the computer image of Jayden was remarkably close, not that I would ever let Dawes know my thoughts on that. But more telling for me was my resemblance to the photos I saw of Jayden’s father, Graham Evans.

Part of me wondered if this experienced cop was a better bloodhound than I gave him credit for and I was too closed minded to embrace the evidence and the coincidences.

It certainly doesn’t help the naysayers to now learn that mum and dad lived in a suburb next to Robina. But my negative thoughts are quickly smothered by reassurances of things like the birthmark I don’t have and my Birth Certificate proving I was born in WA.

Then there are all those photos of me as a newborn. If I was Jayden and taken at three years of age, how could mum and dad have photos of me when I was a baby?

Then it hit me. The photos. I sat bolt upright in bed. The photos are what keep plaguing my mind. There was something about the photos of me as a baby, but I just can’t put my finger on it. A re-visit to mum’s was required to check those photos again.

A hectic return-to-work schedule prevented me from re-visiting mum’s place until Thursday, which I did on my way home from work.

Mum wasn’t home when I arrived, so I let myself in. She mentioned during a phone call that she kept the box of photos in the wardrobe of my old bedroom.

I grabbed the box and dumped it on my old bed. The plethora of loose photos were the first to be sorted through as I searched for something that triggered my nocturnal recall.

Like sorting through a deck of cards, I examined the top photo before dumping it on the discard pack, repeating until all photos were checked.

The photo album was next to face my scrutiny. Sitting on the side of the bed with the album on my knees, I turned through the pages.

‘Hi darling…’ Mum’s voice resonated from downstairs.

‘Up here, mum…’

Mum appeared in the doorway. ‘Having any luck?’

‘Slowly getting through them...’

‘I’ll just finish putting my groceries away and give you a hand.’

During my previous telephone calls with mum, of which I usually try to do every three or four days, I mentioned that the cop in Queensland asked me to provide more photos from the period closer to my birth date, through to toddler age

It was of course a little white lie told to protect mum while I searched for answers to my insomnia.

Mum returned and sat beside me on the bed. She watched on as I turned through the album pages.

None of the album photos were jumping out at me. None triggered a memory that was keeping me awake. I soldiered on, occasionally asking mum about a random photo here and there.

Mum was in full reminiscing mode explaining a photograph, as I turned a page. My eyes locked on to a photo on the top-right. That’s what I was looking for. The photo leapt out from the page. That’s the photo that has been troubling my sleep.

‘Look how small I am in this photo…’ I said doing my best to disguise my interest. The photo depicted dad standing and holding me. My tiny pink face is all that is visible from the tightly wrapped blanket. I tapped the photo. ‘Where was this photo taken…?’

Mum leaned over and examined the photo. ‘I think that was taken in our home in Karratha.’

The photo album was the old-school type from the nineties, where an adhesive sheet of clear plastic secures the 75mm x 75mm developed photos in place; usually four photos to a page.

I peeled open the plastic adhesive sheet and lifted the photo to check for any notations on the back.

‘I don’t remember us having a fireplace in Karratha. Would you even need a fire place in Karratha?’

‘The evenings can get very cold up there…’ Mum said as she took the photo and examined it, front and back, while I monitored her reaction. ‘That’s you and your father not long after you were born…’ she said, holding her gaze on the picture. ‘He was so proud of you…’ A smile emerged. ‘We both were,’ she said as she placed a reassuring hand on my knee. She handed me the photo back. ‘I’m not sure now…you’ve got me thinking, but I thought that was our living room in Karratha.’

‘That’s OK. This’ll do to keep the cop happy.’ I accepted the photograph and snapped it with my phone, then returned it the photo to the album.

Mum waited while I returned everything to its box. ‘Do you want a coffee, or something to eat?’

‘A coffee would be great, thanks…’

The box was returned to the wardrobe shelf as mum disappeared downstairs. Following a quick check to confirm she was gone, I checked the photo in my phone.

The colour of the walls are a different shade in the photo, but the mantel piece over the fire place resembles the mantel piece I saw at Mandy Evans’ place. Could this be a coincidence? Maybe all fireplace mantles were the same back then?

I dragged the box back down and quickly sorted through the loose photos. The photos of me at the same age as Jayden Evans will show I am not him. When the last loose photo hit the discard pile, I checked inside the box. Empty.

All the loose photos are of me around eleven years of age through to about fifteen. The photo album contains all my baby photos. So where are the photos of me as a toddler?

I snapped some more of the photos with my phone then returned everything to the wardrobe.

Mum was sitting at the kitchen bench sipping on her coffee when I arrived. She smiled welcomely at me as I slid onto a stool at the bench. She gently nudged a plate of chocolate chip cookies towards me. ‘I just bought these today,’ she said.

She knows me too well. Choc chip cookies are my fave when I’m enjoying a coffee.

Dad’s passing hit us all incredibly hard, but none more than mum. She was understandably devastated to lose her soul mate. So since his passing, I regularly check in with her, either by phone, or by a visit and a coffee, to check she is doing OK.

Mum is an incredibly strong woman, but she would also hide from me any emotions, or any issues she is having, to keep me from worrying about her.

Our coffee was an ideal time since the roast dinner to monitor how she is coping.

As we were chowing down on cookies and enjoying our coffees, mum asked about Dawes. ‘Is that detective in Queensland still bothering you…?’ she asked, resting on her elbows, holding her cup in both hands.

‘On and off.’

‘What sort of person is he…? Is he an aggressive cop…?’

‘No, he’s not. He’s actually quite a gentle and friendly type. Not what you’d expect from a cop.’

‘What do you have to do, so he’ll leave you alone?’

‘I would’ve thought I’d already done enough for that…’

‘Apparently not,’ she said then took a sip.

‘Hopefully these last lot of photos I send him will do the trick…’

‘Hopefully…’

I decided to ask about the photo taken in front of the mantel piece that looks familiar to me. Was it a coincidence? Was it a common piece of joinery for fire places from back then? I had to ask. I had to know. I had to put this to bed.

‘That photo we looked at…’ I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. ‘The one with the fireplace in it…’

‘What about it…?’

‘I feel I’ve seen that fireplace before somewhere.’

‘You probably remember it from Karratha.’

‘You may be right. But I was thinking more recently…’ Mum frowned her confusion as I continued. ’I feel like I’ve seen this same fireplace recently.’

Mum shrugged as her eyes fell to the bench. ‘Unless you’ve been back to Karratha… I don’t see how.’

‘Do you remember I told you that I visited Mandy Evans, the mother of that missing kid, when I was in Queensland…?’

‘I do. What about her?’

‘We met with her in her lounge room and the mantel piece in that photo we just looked at…’ I jabbed a thumb. ‘Looks similar to the mantel piece over the fireplace in her lounge room.’

Mum sipped her coffee as she processed my comments. ‘I suspect our fire place mantel wasn’t unique, darling. The houses we lived in at that mining village in Karratha weren’t quality builds… maybe they were stock standard back then…I don’t know.’

‘During the time you lived on the Gold Coast, you never met Mandy and Graham Evans. Never been to their home in Robina…?’

‘No. Sorry darling. With your father’s FIFO work we had very few friends in Queensland.’

‘That’s OK… Well, hopefully when this cop receives this last lot of photos, he will leave me alone.’

‘Let’s hope,’ mum said with a warming smile. ‘Do you want to stay for dinner? I bought some lovely chicken breasts.’

‘You know what… That sounds great mum… But I won’t tonight, if you don’t mind. I’ve got a few things I need to do.’

When we finished our coffees, I rinsed the cups and loaded them into the dishwasher, ignoring mum’s directions to leave them because she’ll do that.

Following a kiss and a warm hug from mum, she waved goodbye from her front door as I headed off for home.