The Rest of the Story(66)

“I think that’s the only album you’d want,” Roo said now. I swallowed over the lump in my throat, turning the page as he walked over and sat down again. “Although you’re welcome to keep looking. My dad’s albums are someplace as well. Probably tons of shots of your mom there.”

“This is great, actually,” I said, studying a shot of Celeste, my dad and mom, and another man, with Jack’s same nose and slim frame—Silas, I assumed—sitting at the picnic table. “These are all new to me.”

“Really?” he said. “That’s crazy. I’ve probably looked at them all a thousand times.”

“Yeah?”

He crossed one leg over the other. “I had a lot of questions about my dad when I was old enough to finally ask. My mom usually just showed me these for her answers. That’s why I was kind of freaked out that first day Jack brought you out to the lake.”

I thought back. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was just when I heard your name,” he said, shifting slightly. His shoulder bumped mine. I didn’t move, even as he did to add space again. “It was like you were actually real. Or something.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess,” I said with a laugh.

“Okay, maybe that’s the wrong word.” He turned, looking at me. “It was just, you know, those pictures were part of a narrative for me. So you were, as well. Does that make sense?”

I wanted to say yes. It wasn’t like I hadn’t spent a fair amount of time lately thinking about stories, the ones we told and those we didn’t. But the truth was, it didn’t exactly track.

My face must has shown this, because he said, “Okay. So when I was nine or ten, I started to get really interested in my dad. I wanted to hear all about him, what he was like, all the time. It wore my mom out, so she’d often just give me these albums and tell me to go nuts. But of course, when I dug through them, I had other questions. Like who you were, and what happened to you.”

“Why me?”

“Because, like him, you were in all these pictures. Until you weren’t. Here, I’ll show you.” He pulled the album over into his lap. “See, this one of you with Bailey and Trinity at the table? That was the day your parents brought you. You just appear, after all these books filled with other faces I still knew. A stranger.”

I looked down at myself, the Popsicle gripped in one hand. “You didn’t remember me.”

“I sort of did,” he said. “But we were four. Like I said, I was in a thing. I had questions.”

I felt my face get a little warm, suddenly, knowing I’d been discussed. It was the same finding that shot of my mom on the fridge: like I, too, had been here all along, even if I hadn’t known it.

“And then,” he went on, turning a page, “this was the first time we met, which was probably a few minutes later. She literally got the exact moment.”

I looked at the picture. It was of the shoreline, littered then as it was now with various floats and beach toys. I was standing at the water’s edge in the same bathing suit, holding a plastic flowerpot, as Roo, crouched in the sand, gripped a shovel and looked up into my face. Behind us, a white boat was sliding past, out of frame.

“I look skeptical,” I said.

“You had good instincts. I was shady.”

I laughed, glad for the release. This felt heavy in a way I couldn’t explain. “Are there more?”

He turned another page, pointing to the bottom corner and a shot taken on a bumper car. The two of us were side by side, me behind the fake wheel while he had his arms up in the air, a gleeful look on his face. “Well, here we have evidence that you used to drive just fine.”

“Maybe that’s where I got traumatized,” I suggested.

“Entirely possible.” Another page turn. “I think we did better off four wheels. Look.”

I did, following his finger to a picture of him and me in the grassy stretch behind Mimi’s house, Calvander’s office in the distant background. I had to look more closely to make out that it was bubbles, tons of them, floating up over us as we stood together. I had one arm looped around his neck, my eyes cast downward while he looked straight ahead.

“Wow,” I said softly.

“I know.” He leaned in a little bit more: now our shoulders touched again. “I’ve always really liked this shot, for some reason. It just looks—”

“Magical,” I finished for him. As soon as I said the word, I felt silly. But that was what had come to mind.

“Yeah.” He turned his head, smiling at me, and I wished more than anything, right then, that I did remember. That day, that shot, those bubbles. But especially him.

“Anyway,” he said, “there are others, too. But those are the ones I remember. As well as that group shot, the one you already saw. Which is . . . here.”

He turned a few more pages until it appeared, this time blown up bigger: me, Roo, Jack, Bailey, and Trinity, all on the bench, side by side. The day I had arrived and seen it beneath the glass in Mimi’s office, every other face had been a stranger. Now, looking at them, I could see things I immediately recognized: the recognizable wry annoyance of Trinity’s expression, how Bailey looked so serious, sitting with elbows propped on knees, framing her own face with her fists. Jack, the oldest, already focused on what would come after the shutter clicked, while Roo’s grin was the same. I looked at myself last, thinking there would be no surprises there, at least. But this time, I did see something different. It was the way I was sitting, leaning against Roo, our knees bumping each other: the ease and comfortableness that comes with familiarity. It was, actually, much like we were sitting now.