We were sorting through photographs. The funeral was over: dishes cleaned,

tablecloths put away, mementos divvied among the cousins, the grandchildren. The house had

been cleaned. Clothes sent away. Still there remained a box of photographs; corners tattered,

sepia-tones darkening. There were photos of first loves and distant relatives and forgotten

neighborhood friends. We talked over wine and Irish coffee about who those strangers were,

how they haunted the family and the generations to come. But memory fades, creates new

connections, red herrings to give names to those no one remembers.

At the bottom of the box was a photograph of a child, lost somewhere between

seasons. Sleeves pulled down, flower stem held too tightly between not-quite-dexterous

fingers. Plywood under foot. The field had been plowed, brittle shards left from a bumper crop

of sweet corn. We thought it might have been taken during the renovations on the farm. The

child couldn’t have been much more than four. Maybe he belonged to someone’s former

girlfriend. Could have been a second cousin, X times removed. A builder’s child. The window

dressing tattered. A bleach white day.

He looked happy - like he was playing with a friend. Someone familiar. Someone he liked.

Someone insisted that his name was on the tip of her tongue. We kept passing around the

photos, laughing at foregone fashion. The conversation churned through a mourner’s milieu.

And then someone swore they’d seen the photograph before. In someone else’s house? On a

greeting card? And we remembered recipes and songs, the lingering pungency of lilacs and

dust. How the scent of earth emanated from the big thaw.

Someone went upstairs and we could hear creaks catch and moan, the banister screech,

a pause before the next step assumed. A wobble of vertigo. A caught breath. Shuffling up, up,

the creaks continued and faded into steps along the hall. We commented on the draft, the

sudden exhale of the house. Grumbled about the lukewarm coffee and stale plum cake. His

name was… and then the conversation drifted again.

We wondered who took the photo and why he wasn’t looking at them. Those moments

when we’re unaware of the camera. Did the shutter startle him? Did he run toward them

giggling? Did he stumble and scrape the fleshy parts of his hands, flattening the blossom?

We heard the door shut at the end of the upstairs hall. Then someone said they remembered

him, how long they looked for him, where they found him. They don’t always come back to you

with a smile, he said.