She looked down.
Lily came to see me on a Sunday afternoon carrying a wrapped package under one arm.
Then I said, “There was room for both of us.”
She cried. I didn’t.
A month later, Lily came to see me on a Sunday afternoon carrying a wrapped package under one arm.
“This is for you, Grandma. Mom helped me make it,” she said.
Inside was a small photo album with blue cloth covers.
On the front, in careful black marker, Ashley had written: The Whole Family.
Then I turned to the first page.
When I opened it, every page held one of her instant photographs from the beach.
There I was by the umbrella. There I was carrying towels.
There I was in the sand with both children pressed close.
Then I turned to the first page.
She had pasted a picture of me standing near the boardwalk rail, one hand lifted against the sun, looking back toward the water.
Under it, Lily had written:
“You were never not in the picture.”
