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Grandma and I both ordered hot roast beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy and cups of coffee.

“You’re turning into an old lady.” Her shoulders shook with laughter.

“We just have good taste, Grandma,” I said as the waitress brought our steaming cups to the table. I added four small containers of cream and two heaping spoons of sugar.

“You haven’t changed. You’ve just gotten taller.” With that, we both laughed. It made me so happy to see her chuckling, to see the perfect white ridges of her smile.

THE ANTICIPATION OF the developed roll was almost too much. After lunch, Grandma stayed in the truck and read her Reader’s Digest. I walked into Mullarky’s and straight to the counter.

“Oh, hello,” the man bellowed from the back room. “I just finished the roll. I’ll be right out.”

I walked to the corner display case and looked at a dusty Polaroid just like the one Gloria had brought home, with the same silver knobs and shutter button, the rainbow Polaroid sticker on its front. Gloria was weighing heavy on me; I couldn’t shake her. I even smelled the faint hint of smoke in my hair and jacket. She was still with me.

“Here they are. There were twenty-four on the roll. Beautiful stuff. Did you take all of these pictures?” He was smiling.

“No. My mother took most of them. I only took the last four or five. I can’t remember.”

“Well, that last one is a doozy. Loved it. Here you go.”

He handed me the packet of photos in a black plastic container. Their weight was awkward; I had to take it in two hands. I could feel a lump in my throat rise and fall. My hands were damp with sweat, my mouth dry and cramping.

“Are you okay?” He stooped to look into my eyes.

“Yes. I’m fine. Just a little anxious.” I must have looked pale. I could feel my blood rushing down to my feet. “How much do I owe you?”

“That comes to forty dollars. Sorry I had to add a little extra, you know, for the rush and the special care. One of the spindles on the film cracked, but other than that, all the photos were there.”

“That’s fine,” I said, and handed him the money.

“Well, are you going to open it?” He smiled. “If it were me, I would be tearing them open. But, hey, I’ve already seen them. What do I know?”

“I’m waiting to open them with my grandma. She’s in the car.”

“Well, if you’re ever in town with your Hasselblad, come and visit.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I’ve never actually seen one in the flesh, you know, in my hands.”

“Okay.”

When I opened the truck’s door, Grandma already had a smile on her face. “Well? Open them up.”

I jumped into the cab and pulled up the folded plastic. My fingers stuck to the back of the stack. The first photograph was of Mom. It must have been her first photograph with the camera— a self-portrait. I could see her hand clenched around the shutter cord; her finger pressed down. She wasn’t smiling, but she had a look of wonder on her face, like she was trying to imagine the photograph burning into the emulsion. It was as if she were watching us opening the envelope. There were three generations of memories all there together on the pages.

I could feel tears burning on my cheek. She was so beautiful. I noticed Grandma was crying too. We looked at each other and smiled.

“Grandma, maybe we should save the rest until we get home.”

“I think you may be right,” she said.

I pushed the stack back into the envelope.

THE ROAD HOME was long and hot—the winter sun was surprisingly warm. In the cab, Grandma had dozed off again, holding the black envelope in her lap.

With nothing to distract me, I couldn’t stop thinking about the rest of the photographs. Although I knew Mom was gone, that first picture had really forced me to realize that her presence was no longer here. I felt slighted that I could not see her. I was willing to give up my self-exorcism from seeing the ghosts if it meant I could see my mom again.

Once home, I helped Grandma into the bathroom, leaving the photos on the kitchen table. I put on some tea, staring at the envelope. I could hear laughter coming from it like a whisper. I picked up the envelope and held it to my chest, then laid the photos out on the kitchen table one by one.

The first was the one that Grandma and I had pulled from the envelope this morning. Images two, three, and four were of my mom accidentally pressing in the cable release.

Photos five and six were of Tohatchi from high above the town. I knew right where she was sitting when she took this picture—on the west side of Chuska mesa, looking down at Grandma’s house. The second was very wide, capturing Tohatchi and the still snow-covered peaks of the Chuska Mountains. On the top of the print, the clouds spread out over the peaks like melted marshmallows, effervescent and seamless.

The next five photographs were of Grandma. They were beautiful portraits as I had never seen her before, her Navajo blood shining deeply through her eyes. Photos ten and eleven were of Grandma and Mom together. Mom was dressed in a black T-shirt and a gray vest with khaki pants and boots. Number ten must have just been a random shot—my mom pointing to the lens and Grandma looking into it. But eleven was great. Grandma had her arm around Mom’s neck, both of them laughing hysterically. Just seeing them made me smile.

Photo number twelve was of a Navajo lady with her hair pulled under a blue handkerchief. When I looked closer, I realized it was Mrs. Bitsie, Grandma’s neighbor. She was standing at her garden gate, holding her shovel. Her dog, George Bush, sat by her side. Photo thirteen was of George Bush, his mouth open in a smile, his bushy tail wagging behind.