She brought a small frame from the sitting room.
Inside was an old photograph of my father and me in the reading chair.
I was asleep.
He held an open book.
One hand rested across my shoulder.
Theo studied it.
“You’re taking all the chair.”
“I was very tired.”
“Granddad too.”
My mother smiled.
“He stayed.”
Theo looked at the photograph.
Then at me.
“Did you know you were home?”
I thought about the boy in the picture.
Six years old.
Seven, perhaps.
Still learning what could remain.
“I was learning.”
Theo nodded.
He seemed to understand.
Not because our histories were identical.
They weren’t.
But he knew something about discovering that a place could still be there after a difficult day.
My mother put the photograph beside the one Theo had chosen from his own early life.
Two children.
Different years.
Different beginnings.
Both allowed to remain visible.
She did not label either picture as proof.
They were family photographs.
That was enough.
When the guests left, I found Theo in the dining room.
He stood behind the chair he had used beside my mother.
The table had been cleared.
Napkins lay in a basket.
The brass rings waited on a tray.
He picked one up.
Turned it over.
Then looked at me.
“Do you remember what you asked Camilla?”
I knew immediately.
“Where I should sit.”
He nodded.
“What did she say?”
“She didn’t have a good answer.”
Theo considered that.
Then he looked around the table.
“She didn’t have to decide.”
