Album — Oversized Tee

You are supposed to be sorting the photographs. There are three piles, a clean table and an agreement that duplicates will be dealt with sensibly. Within ten minutes, someone has found a picture of your uncle wearing a coat that requires the whole room's attention. The three piles cease to have separate purposes.

Nobody agrees about the year. It cannot have been that early because the little one was already born. It cannot have been that late because someone still had the red car. A haircut is introduced as evidence. This turns out to be more reliable than the car, although the person whose head supplied it would prefer to continue discussing the transport.

You like the accidental things. The bag on the wall behind the birthday cake. The kitchen before the cupboard was changed. The corner of a blanket you had forgotten until a small patch of color brought back the whole room. You sit in the wide yellow tee with pictures spreading toward your elbows and keep finding people you know doing things you had never seen them do. Somebody in the background of one photograph is clearly winning a separate argument.

Eventually you turn over a print and find a careful date, followed by a name in handwriting everyone recognizes. The room becomes briefly quiet. Then someone points out that the date must be wrong because the haircut had definitely happened by then. You put the photograph where all three piles used to meet. It belongs with the others.

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