Page 91 of Your Every Wish
“No, but it’s interesting. Go put on something dry, and I’ll show you.”
I’m not big on looking at other people’s photographs. Lorelie used to love showing off her vacation pictures, watching the gang from Caesars scroll through her phone while she described in tedious detail each site, each meal, each hotel room or Airbnb where she stayed. There’s nothing duller, except maybe photos of coworkers’ children. Those are the worst.
Less intrigued than I was a minute ago, I shuffle off to bathe and put on warm clothes. My phone goes off with Madge’s ringtone—after all, it’s been more than an hour. I let it go to voicemail, swearing to myself that I’ll call her back after my shower, when I will once again explain to her that no, we still haven’t found the money. And, yes, hopes of ever finding it are fading fast.
When I return to the kitchen, Emma’s still there, poring over the photo album, her eyes watery.
“Come look,” she calls me over.
“Do I have to?” I scrounge through the pantry for something to eat. Time to make another Pop-Tart run.
“You’ll be glad you did.”
“Whatever.” I plop down next to her, so she can show me the freaking pictures.
One of a little boy, who I presume is Willy, pages of photos of what I’m guessing is his mother, grandmother, and brother, a snapshot or two of a barrel-chested man with brown hair and twinkly blue eyes, possibly Willy’s father. His resemblance to me is so uncanny it’s like looking in a mirror. I have his eyes for sure. Same cleft chin and Greek nose.
“I wonder if any of these people are still alive?” I mutter aloud.
“His brother is for sure. His mother died when he was a boy and his grandmother passed when Willy was in his twenties. Not sure about his father. He ran off with another woman when Willy was just a boy.”
For a second Emma’s and my eyes meet and I say what we’re both thinking, “Like father, like son.”
“Keep looking.” Emma turns the page.
There are more snapshots of the same people but mostly of Willy’s grandmother. It’s clear from the pictures that whoever took them really loved her.
“She looks nice,” I say, though there’s no way to really tell from a picture. Perhaps it’s her white hair and cherubic face. It’s her resemblance to Mrs. Claus. Everyone loves Santa’s wife, right?
Emma shrugs. “Never met her.” She turns the page again. “Frank looked just like Willy when they were kids.”
“The brother?”
Emma nods. “I wonder what he looks like now. After he called me, I looked him up on Google but couldn’t find anything. It was obvious from his call that he and Willy fell out of touch a long time ago. Interesting, that Willy didn’t put him in his will.”
I flip through more of the pages, feeling a bit like a voyeur, peeping into the life of a stranger, when I come to a picture of someone familiar. At first, I think it’s Emma and then I realize it’s her mother.
“Wow.” The next page has a picture of Emma’s mom in a wedding dress. She’s standing next to Willy in front of an ornate public building, maybe a city hall somewhere. “Were you surprised to see this?”
“A little. Interesting that he saved it, huh?”
“Maybe he still loved her,” I say, though he had a strange way of showing it.
“Or he once did and wanted to preserve the memory of what it felt like. Keep going,” Emma urges me on.
There are more pictures of Willy and Emma’s mom. One on a green couch in an apartment, another of the two of them on a sandy beach. Judging by the palm trees it could be Hawaii or San Diego or even Florida.
I turn the page and there’s Madge in one of her dance costumes, hunched over a birthday cake with a sparkler on the top, smiling for the camera. She looks so impossibly young and so blissfully happy that I get a lump in my throat.
“Your mom, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” I have to look away because my eyes are swimming in tears. He’d kept a picture of her.
And there’s more. Two, to be exact. One of them together in front of the water fountains at the Bellagio and another of the two of them in a vintage Corvair convertible, snuggled up together.
I quickly flip through the pages to see if there are more women, more Mrs. Keils, more paramours. I get to the last five or six pages in the book, and they’re completely dedicated to Emma and me. Baby pictures, birthday parties, high school graduations, Emma’s college graduation, one of me walking through the door of Caesars Palace. It appears it was shot with a long lens not found on a camera phone.
“Where do you think he got these?” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “No way did Madge send them to him. She hasn’t heard from him in more than thirty years. Not since I was born.”
