I just cannot pretend it means the same thing to me today.”

Richard picked it up and held it in his palm.

“Your mother thinks we should keep the celebration photographs,” he said.

“She says they are family photographs, whatever happens with the promotion.”

Emily took the chair at last.

“I don’t know what I want to do about the photographs.”

“Neither do I.”

It was not an apology, and Emily did not ask him to make it one.