She looked back at Grandma.
“Those are years I thought I might lose.”
Grandma held her hand against her cheek.
For 67 years, she had remembered a woman disappearing into smoke.
Now that woman was sitting in front of her.
Alive.
Holding her hand.
Thomas opened a small photograph album.
He sat beside Grandma and turned to a picture of a little boy holding a schoolbag.
“That was my first day back at school after the fire.”
Grandma touched the photograph.
“You look so happy.”
“I was.”
He turned another page.
“And this is my youngest granddaughter. She’s seven.”
Grandma looked at the little girl.
The same age he’d been when she carried him outside.
She covered her mouth.
Thomas gently closed the album.
“You gave me the chance to know her.”
Then his mother reached toward the green coat.
“May I?”
Grandma nodded.
The woman touched its worn cuff.
