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‘Yay!’ Mary races to her room to get her shoes.
I turn to Emily, lips pursed. ‘Sneaky.’
She waves away my comment. ‘Yes, yes, I know.’
I point to the box. ‘What’s that?’ Suspicion laced in my voice.
‘A gift.’ She holds up a hand before I can argue. ‘I didn’t spend a single penny on it.’
I frown, still uncomfortable with receiving anything from her after all she’s already spent. Especially knowing that we aren’t family. Not legally, anyway.
‘Ready!’ Breaking records on getting ready now that ice cream is on the table, Mary hustles over and grabs her matching purple puffer jacket from the closet.
The two of them look so adorable together, I tear up.
It’s nice having someone who cares. For me and Mary.
Even if every time I see her it hurts.
‘Okay, then.’ Emily ushers Mary out the door. ‘Off we go.’
I stare at the closed door, wondering why Emily seemed in such a rush. Eyes still narrowed, I turn my attention to the box.
It looks like a shirt box, but larger, more substantial. The yellow Post-it note glaring on top of the shiny black cardboard.
Tentatively, I walk over and read it.
BECAUSE SOMETIMES WORDS FAIL ME.
It’s Thomas’s handwriting. Large, all-cap print, slightly slanted to the left.
Swallowing, I lift the lid. It’s a photo album.
I tell myself not to open it. That only added sadness is between the pages, pages I’m sure are filled with the photos Thomas and I took that day in the park. And yet I grab the bottom right corner and lift.
It’s not the pictures from the park. It isn’t even pictures from Mary and my time living with Thomas. It’s me, almost a year ago, at Moore’s. Me with my unattractive blunt bang haircut and slightly baggy salesman uniform.
When did he take this?
Each page following is a timeline of my work at Moore’s starting just before Chase and Thomas took control from their father. First pictures of me in the shoe department all the way up to the Valentine’s displays I created. Not all pictures have me in them. But they’re somehow about me.
And on the last few pages are the pictures of our time with him. Mary on the swing. Emily and me laughing in the kitchen. Mike Hunt laying on a bed of Barbie clothes.
Thomas’s face might never show up in the photos, but he’s there in all of them. I feel him.
On the last page, there’s another Post-it note.
I’M SORRY. PLEASE COME HOME.
* * *
‘We’re just going in and out, okay?’ I lean down so Mary can hear me over the city noise.
Holding my hand, Mary skips up the last step of the subway a block away from Moore’s. ‘Okey-dokey.’
‘No shopping,’ I add. ‘No dawdling.’
I don’t know if I’m reminding her or me.
