In September, Arthur came home with the school photograph order form.
He disliked the first picture.
“My hair looks like it’s trying to leave.”
Elias examined it solemnly.
“It does look ambitious.”
Arthur laughed.
They chose the second photograph.
When the prints arrived, his son carried one into the study.
“For your desk.”
Elias held it beside the baby picture.
“Which side?”
Arthur pointed.
“There.”
His father placed it in the frame.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Arthur asked, “You can change them sometimes, though.”
Elias looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“If there’s a better one next year.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean this one stops being me.”
“No,” Elias said. “It doesn’t.”
The boy nodded.
Something in his expression eased.
He had begun to understand a distinction the adults should have explained long before.
A photograph could move without a person being rejected.
An old picture could go into an album without love being withdrawn.
But nobody got to use those ordinary choices to frighten a child into disappearing.
Arthur looked around the study.
There was a photograph of Nora on a bookshelf.
One of Beatrice at a family picnic.
Another from the summer terrace with Felicity had been placed in an album Elias kept privately. He had not destroyed it or displayed it as proof that nothing hurt.
The house contained history.
It also contained space for days that had not happened yet.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Can we put the lake one downstairs again?”
“Where would you like it?”
Arthur thought.
“Not at dinner.”
Elias waited.
“The little table near the garden. She liked outside.”
“That sounds right.”
They carried it together.
Several months after the interrupted dinner, Beatrice came for another meal.
This time, there were no business guests.
Clara had the evening off.
Simon arrived late with bread he claimed to have made.
