Then I looked closer.
They were pencil marks.
Names.
Dates.
Heights.
CHASE — AGE 8.
CHASE — AGE 10.
CHASE — AGE 12.
Higher up were older marks belonging to his mother.
And above all of them was another name.
GRANDPA.
I crouched there staring at an entire family’s history written directly onto the garage wall.
Then, as I moved another storage bin, something slid out and landed on the concrete.
A small framed photograph.
The glass was cracked, but the picture itself was still clear.
An older man stood beside a young boy holding a bicycle.
I recognized the boy instantly.
Chase.
And suddenly, I knew why his face had seemed familiar from the first day we’d met.
I’d seen that photograph before.
It had been hanging in the hallway during the open house when I first toured the property. By the time I moved in, the realtor had removed it along with everything else.
