I opened it.
Tucked behind his driver’s license was a photograph gone soft at the corners from years of being touched. Miley, standing at a kitchen table beside a plate of star-shaped pancakes.
Behind that was another photo. Me, at five years old, grinning as I held up a lopsided pancake with one burnt point.
Nothing was written on either one. Nothing needed to be.
Frank had carried both of his daughters with him, every single day. He’d never replaced Miley with me — he’d never once loved me because he’d managed to forget her. He had loved me while remembering, down to the last detail, exactly how much that kind of love could cost him.
That evening I went home. My daughter was waiting at the kitchen table.
“Is Grandpa coming back?”
I sat down beside her. “No, sweetheart. He’s not.”
Her face crumpled, and I held her until it passed.
