My son was crouched in front of a small headstone tucked between two elm trees.
His finger was pressed to the front of the stone, like he was tracing something.
“What do you mean, my picture?” I asked, moving toward him carefully through the weeds. My chest felt tight, and I was starting to feel dizzy.
“It’s you, Daddy,” Ryan said, not even turning around. “It’s the baby you!
Don’t we have a photo like this above the fireplace?”
When I stepped beside him and looked down, my breath caught in my throat.
Set into the headstone was a ceramic photograph. It was worn from age and chipped in the right corner… but it was still unmistakably clear.
It was me.
I was maybe four years old, my dark hair a little longer than Ryan’s now.
My eyes were wide and unsure, and I was wearing a yellow shirt I only vaguely remembered from a torn Polaroid back home in Texas.
Beneath the photograph was a single line etched into the headstone.
“January 29, 1984.”
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