Chapter 2: The Photograph in the Old Wallet
I grabbed his arm.
"Grandpa.
Tell me right now.
What mistake?
What promise?"
He wouldn't look at me.
He was still staring at Nora's eyes — that one blue, one nearly black — like he was watching something terrible come true in slow motion.
"Caleb," he finally said.
"What did he tell you about his family?"
"Nothing.
He never talked about them.
I assumed they were gone, like mine."
Grandpa made a sound I had never heard from him before.
Something between a groan and a sob.
"They're not gone, sweetheart.
His family is very much alive."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
He finally looked up at me.
His eyes were red, his jaw tight.
"Because I know his family.
I've known them for forty years."
The porch felt like it was tilting under my feet.
"Grandpa, you're scaring me."
He pressed his lips together.
Then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his wallet.
Old.
Worn at the corners.
He opened it slowly and slid out a photograph — small, faded, folded at the edge.
He held it out to me without a word.
I took it.
My hand started shaking before I even understood what I was seeing.
Because the young man in that photo had dark curls.
May you like
A cleft in his chin.
And two different colored eyes.
