“He never dated anyone after my mother.
I used to ask him why.
He’d say he had everything he needed.” A beat.
“I thought he meant me.”
“Maybe he did,” I said.
“And maybe he also meant something else.”
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
Then: “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“When you walked into his hospital room and recognized him — what did you feel?”
I thought about it honestly.
“Frightened,” I said.
“And something I don’t have a better word for than — recognition.
Not just of his face.
Of something underneath it.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
He reached into his coat pocket and produced a photograph.
He set it on the table between us.
It was Thomas.
Young — seventeen, eighteen at most.
Standing in front of a house.
Smiling at the camera with his whole face.
“That’s the house on Maple Street,” Daniel said.
“I found it in his desk after he passed.
It was in an envelope with your name on it.”
I looked at the photograph for a long time.
“He never showed me this,” I said.
“No.
He left it for you.” Daniel paused.
“There’s a date on the back.”
I turned it over.
The date written there was fifty-three years ago.
One year after I had left.
