Stella felt the breath leave her body.
She’d only brought one photograph with her, the only one she could find in her mother’s things. Now she had two of her family. Maybe more, right here in her hand! The realization landed into her heart like a windfall. She carefully peeled the two last photographs apart.
A wedding photo. A bride and groom sat in the middle of a group of people, all in formal wear.
Why would someone put a photograph like this on the mantle, without a frame? The other one, too, now that she thought of it. She scanned the photograph, realizing that the bride in the wedding photograph had her eyes half closed. Maybe this was an outtake? The original framed somewhere while this one sat on the mantle until one day it fell behind the surround?
Stella flipped back to the f
