Page 175 - My FlipBook

T R A I L O F C R U M B S

For some reason it was Ash’s job to get them—they both
knew it. He pushed himself off the bed and left the room.
Greta heard him open the door to the staircase leading to the
basement and waited a few minutes. A hornet in her belly
buzzed with anger, anxiety, fear. The sun burned it away,
though, and the feeling didn’t pierce her.
Ash came back and set the shoebox on the dresser,
brushing dust off the lid. He picked three photos right off the

top of the pile and handed them to her hesitantly, as if they
were the results of a cancer biopsy.
Greta’s heart sank at the first photo—a version of what she
had feared. Their mom sliding a lit birthday cake in front of
her and Ash, only the back of her head and one cheek visible.
Greta counted the candles: their fifth birthday. Ash, with
a messy mop of hair, smiled like he’d been handed a pony.

Greta in partial silhouette as well. Still, a good moment, one
retained only by the picture. Greta couldn’t recall anything
about their fifth birthday.
A pang of joy and jealousy at the second one. Diana’s
and Ash’s faces filled the whole photo. Roger—the invisible
photographer—stood close. Diana’s skin was washed pale
from the flash. Greta noticed Diana’s slightly crooked teeth,
and Ash’s new adult teeth, still too large for his mouth. What
had happened to that look, a lightness—even joy—in his eyes?

Was it snuffed out at once when Diana died? Slowly siphoned
from him over The Patty Years? A natural part of growing up?
A passerby must have taken the third photo, all of them
together at Hawrelak Park. Roger and Diana stood with their

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