A photo album lay open on the coffee table, as if someone had been looking through it recently. I lowered myself onto the couch and pulled it into my lap.

The first photograph stole my breath. Helen sat on the beach outside the cabin in a straw hat and the blue cardigan I remembered buying her in Maine, her arm around a young woman with dark hair and gentle eyes.

They laughed together, leaning toward each other, the ocean sparkling behind them. Helen didn’t just look happy. She looked free.

I turned the page. Helen and the woman cooking together in the little kitchen. Helen reading aloud on the porch while the woman rested under a blanket.

The woman in a wheelchair beside the window while Helen knelt to adjust something near her foot. Helen holding birthday cupcakes with candles shaped like the number thirty-eight.

The woman alone, leaning on forearm crutches, smiling shyly at the camera. The same face, again and again. Kind. Tired. Loved.