She walked out of the room without a word. I heard her go up the stairs. I heard the closet in the hallway open. Everyone stayed frozen, waiting.
She came back down holding an old photo album with a cracked green leather cover. She sat down next to me and opened it on my lap, flipping through the brittle pages until she found the one she wanted.
A black and white photograph. A young man in a work shirt, leaning against an old truck, grinning at the camera with a cigarette behind his ear.
Even in black and white, you could see his hair was lighter than everything around it. Thick and wavy and bright.
My mom pulled a second photo out from behind it. This one was in color. Faded, the way old photos from the seventies are faded. The same man, older, holding a baby on his knee at a picnic table.His hair was the color of a new penny.
