The whole wall was covered in framed photographs from the restaurant’s opening night, back in 1987. Dozens of people smiling under those same strings of lights, holding up glasses, frozen mid-laugh. A little museum of one good night from almost forty years ago.
And there, near the middle, was a photograph that didn’t match the rest. Newer frame. Dad had added it himself at some point, I could tell. In it, three young people stood together, impossibly young, grinning at whoever held the camera.
Dad was near the back, maybe thirty years old, with hair. Mom was beside him, and my chest went tight just seeing her that young, that alive.
And on Mom’s other side stood a third young woman.
Her face had been scratched almost completely away.
Not smudged. Not faded. Scratched. Someone had taken something sharp and dug it across her face over and over until there was almost nothing left but pale gouges in the photo paper.
