When we got home that night, I hung the fishing photos back on the wall by the front door. Dad and me on Cutter Lake. Me at nine with the bass bigger than my arm.
The mirror went in the trash can at the end of the driveway.
Garbage day.
My mother’s photo went on the mantle, right where it belonged.
Sometimes the truth takes years to reach you, and sometimes it arrives in pieces — a key, a tape, a hand that refuses to let go. But if you keep holding on, it finds its way home.
