Felicity looked toward the door.
“That’s unfair.”
“Then help me understand.”
She said nothing.
At ten minutes to eight, Elias stood.
“We’ll continue tomorrow.”
“You’re walking away?”
“I told Arthur I would be upstairs at eight.”
For the first time that evening, he did not allow the conversation to decide when it ended.
He went to find his son.
Arthur was sitting on his bedroom floor.
The lake photograph rested beside him.
Around it lay several smaller pictures, a drawing from school, and a folded sheet of paper.
When Elias entered, Arthur began gathering them.
“You’re early.”
“Only a few minutes.”
“I’m tidying.”
Elias sat on the edge of the bed.
“Can I help?”
His son hesitated.
Then he handed him the folded paper.
Across the top, in careful uneven letters, Arthur had written:
THINGS WE CAN PUT AWAY.
Elias read the first line.
A photograph of Arthur with a missing front tooth.
The second.
A nursery drawing with blue handprints.
The third.
A picture of Elias holding him when he was a baby.
He looked up.
“What is this?”
Arthur kept arranging the photographs into a straight line.
“I don’t need all of them.”
“Did someone ask you to make a list?”
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
His son shrugged.
It was a practiced little movement, meant to make something important look small.
“If I helped, maybe we could keep the lake one.”
Elias put the paper down carefully.
Arthur continued.
“I don’t remember being a baby anyway.”
His father looked at the photograph in his hand.
Nora had taken it in the hospital. Elias looked exhausted, frightened, and astonished. Arthur was a small bundle against his chest.
It was one of his favorite pictures.
His son had offered it as payment.
“You don’t have to trade pictures,” Elias said.
Arthur’s eyes lifted.
“But there are lots of me.”
