Loss

It wasn’t there, she had lost it—Molly had lost it. She felt the stinging realization, her hands tingling, so empty, so sad. Mrs. Johnson had taken the photograph at the lake house the summer before Jimmy had broken his leg on that silly trampoline—Molly had known right away it was a bad idea, she’d told Dan they were asking for trouble. It was right after he had finally gotten the promotion and they had snuck out to the boat every night to make love, and it had felt like the start of a forever kind of change. She was smiling widely for the picture—Dan had just squeezed her hand in the hidden space behind the boys as they all posed, and she had blushed like a schoolgirl at the realization that her husband had become a new man, just like that, hers to keep, right when the flash went off. Luke was dripping with lake water and mud and mostly toothless, still sprouting. Jimmy frowned. It wasn’t the best photo, of course; no one ever had the heart to tell Mrs. Johnson to move her finger from the lens, not once all summer, so it became this funny little joke they had shared with the other neighbors—Mrs. Johnson and her finger, we don’t go anywhere without them!—and by then it was too late to say it. But Molly had loved to thumb the wrinkled edge, the familiar, weary paper whenever she wanted the sun and stampeding and splashing of that favorite of days against her skin.