“May I?” Curt said.
I nodded again and he unrolled the paper and held it up. “Wow. We might need a microscope.” He handed it to me.
I read the miniature text out loud. “ ‘But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.’ ”
“This is magic,” he said. “This is treasure. It’s good luck.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He smiled at me then sat at the dining table, looking around at the stuff from the box.
“I have to see these pictures your dad didn’t want you to see,” Curt said. “But you first.”
I pulled the album toward me and opened it. My head felt fuzzy, my breathing was so shallow. Old photos, the colors faded, the clothes like something out of the Mad Men promos I saw on TV—-cat--eye glasses and short poufy hair with side curls on the women, polyester shirts and sideburns on the men. There was everyone from infants to elderly folks. I looked closely at the -people in the photos but I didn’t recognize anyone. I thought my heart would pop out of my mouth, my chest felt so tight.
I guessed that these -people must be my extended family, that or Mr. Dooley had put a decoy box up in the hall. I turned a few more pages and it was a completely different family, but the same time period. I got halfway through and decided to start at the beginning again. Some of the -people in the photos had started to look familiar. I couldn’t figure out if this was because I’d just moments before looked at the photos or if I truly recognized them. Then I came upon a photo of a little boy with the skinniest arms and legs and this hilariously proud look on his face. I knew that face, and it filled me with joy.
I paged forward until I saw an image of this face as an older adolescent, and sure enough, it was my dad as a teenager. He had surfer--guy hair and high--waisted jeans and a black T--shirt that said Scorpions Virgin Killer on it. Dad was standing by another guy with similar hair and the two of them were obviously laughing really hard. My dad was smiling like I’d never seen him smile, and I wanted to cry. He may have been nuts, he may have been paranoid, but he was the only human being I’d ever had any kind of relationship with, and I missed him.
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve then paged forward to a picture of a teenage girl with braces and skinny legs with long light brown hair and dimples. She was wearing a swimsuit and eating a popsicle that was dripping red down her hand and arm. There were more pictures of the same girl, getting older, looking more and more like me. My mom.
Then the pattern hit me: two pages of Dad’s family and then two pages of Mom’s, showing them both growing up and finally as a -couple. I examined all the faces throughout the album again, imagining all of us as the roots of a tree, branching off into infinity, and something clicked inside me. I’d had a family. These -people and I all had the same blood in our veins. We were connected. I felt a quiet bittersweet happiness at this idea.
I flipped to the last page, and there was an eight--by--ten of Mom and Dad in winter jackets, bright sunshine in their eyes, standing in a gazebo frosted with sparkling snow, their smiles looking like they might burst right off of their faces. I was struck with the eerie feeling that someone had replaced the happy, smiling, mischievous man in these photos with the empty, somber Dad I’d known all these years. Did losing Mom in the house fire take all the fire out of his eyes? Was that what had happened?
Stuck in the very back of the album was a wedding invitation with names I didn’t know, maybe friends of my parents.
I looked up to see Roxanne, Curt, and Dekker counting the rubber--banded letters in the stack.
“One hundred forty--seven,” Dekker said.
“Let’s divide them up,” said Roxanne, handing me the top quarter, Curt the second, herself the third, and Dekker the bottom of the stack. I pushed the photo album toward Curt, knowing I’d come back to it again and again, and opened the topmost letter off my stack.
My dearest love,
The first time I saw you, everything changed for me. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything but think about you. I have never felt like this before, and I make this vow to you that every day for the rest of my life, I will love you like no one else on earth ever could. I will spend every day working to deserve you and your love.
All my love,
M
That was a weird way to sign the letter. Why would Dad use his last initial?
Curt studied the pages of the photo album. “So how did you end up in Saw Pole? Usually -people move away from Kansas, not to it.”
I explained about my mom and the house fire.
“Did your folks vacation in Colorado a lot, or what?”