“That was my first day back at school after the fire.”
Grandma touched the photograph.
“You look so happy.”
“I was.”
He turned another page.
“And this is my youngest granddaughter. She’s seven.”
Grandma looked at the little girl.
The same age he’d been when she carried him outside.
She covered her mouth.
Thomas gently closed the album.
“You gave me the chance to know her.”
Then his mother reached toward the green coat.
“May I?”
Grandma nodded.
The woman touched its worn cuff.
“You kept it.”
“All these years.”
“Why?”
Grandma looked at Thomas.
“Because I never forgot your little boy.”
His mother began crying again.
“Neither of us ever forgot you.”
They sat together for a long time.
Nobody hurried them.
Eventually, Thomas asked if Grandma would come to Christmas dinner.
She laughed.
Then cried.
Then said yes.
That evening, I helped Grandma hang up her coat.
I touched its frayed sleeve.
