Chapter 7 - The photographs before the wedding We started noticing old things.
Family Christmas two years earlier.
Cordelia organized grandchildren along the staircase.
Bram was placed at the bottom.
She said:
“Easier for him.”
Probably true.
Then everybody else moved up three steps.
The final photo cropped the wheelchair below the seat.
Another photograph at Easter.
Bram seated behind a flower arrangement.
At Cordelia’s sixtieth-birthday dinner—celebrated early, because she loved planning—Bram had been positioned at the end of the table while other grandchildren stood behind her.
Once could be coincidence.
Twice logistics.
Patterns emerge slowly because reasonable people spend a lot of time helping unreasonable behavior look reasonable.
Alaric sat beside me looking through family albums on his tablet.
He stopped at a photograph from his cousin’s graduation.
“You asked Mom why Bram wasn’t in this one.”
I remembered.
“She said he was tired.”
“He wasn’t?”
“He was with your uncle at the dessert table.”
Alaric stared.
“I believed her.”
“So did I.”
That mattered.
May you like
Cordelia had not fooled a foolish son while I saw everything clearly.
I had missed parts too.
