The photograph had faded with age.
An ice cream truck stood in the background.
In front of it, a little girl was grinning at the camera while holding a strawberry shortcake bar.
I knew her immediately.
Me.
I couldn’t have been older than eight.
Ellie leaned over my arm.
“Mom, that’s you!”
“Yeah.”
But I barely heard her.
A young man stood beside me in the photograph.
Dark hair.
No glasses.
One hand rested on my shoulder.
I looked from his face in the picture to the older man behind the counter.
It was him.
“What is this?”
He stared at the photograph.
“You really don’t remember?”
“No.”
He let out a slow breath.
Then I turned the photograph over.
Something was written across the back in faded blue ink.
My childhood nickname.
A date.
And beneath them, five words that made my hands begin to shake.
I looked up.
