like old wood and dust.
Photographs covered one wall.
Daniel at thirteen holding a fishing rod.
Daniel at sixteen beside an old truck.
Daniel at eighteen wearing graduation robes.
Robert was in almost every picture.
I moved slowly between them.
There was an entire life here.
A version of my husband I had never known.
Daniel watched me.
“You can hate him.”
“I don’t.”
“You can.”
“I know.”
I touched one photograph.
Robert looked happier than I remembered him being during those years.
That hurt too.
“I’m jealous,” I admitted.
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked startled.
“You got pieces of him I didn’t.”
He approached quietly.
“And you got pieces I didn’t.”
We stood together beneath the photographs.
Then I noticed one frame turned backward.
I picked it up.
It showed Robert and me on our wedding day.
Written on the back:
THE REASON I ALWAYS GO HOME.
