CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 21: THE OLD PHOTO ALBUM
The next weekend, my father showed up carrying a large photo album.
"I found this in storage," he said.
We sat at the kitchen table while Ella climbed onto my lap.
The first pages held pictures from before I was born.
Then came photos of my childhood.
Birthday parties.
School plays.
Christmas mornings.
I laughed softly.
"I forgot this sweater existed."
My father smiled.
"Your mother made you wear it every winter."
A few pages later, I stopped.
There was a photograph of my mother.
She looked young.
Happy.
She was holding me as a baby.
The look on her face made my chest tighten.
I had never seen her like that.
"She adored you," my father said quietly.
I looked up.
"Then why did everything become so hard?"
He sighed.
"Because she was afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of losing you."
I stared at the picture.
"Love and fear are dangerous together," he said.
I thought about that for a long time.
Then Ella pointed at another picture.
"Who's that?"
I smiled.
"That's Aunt Samantha."
"She was cute."
I laughed.
"She still is."
My father chuckled.
For the first time in years, we spent an afternoon looking at old memories without bitterness.
When he left, I kept the album.
That night, I placed it beside my grandmother's wooden box.
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Some stories deserved to be remembered.
Even the painful ones.
