Mary Beth couldn’t very well ask his mother to make a Parr pile so she could concentrate on him. There didn’t seem to be a particular method to Alma’s organizing, besides size. The square Polaroids were in one stack, the eight-by-ten school shots in another. Older photographs, somewhat faded, were jumbled together.

“I never was much on making albums,” Alma said with a shake of her head. “Maybe it’s worse today, when everyone has a million digital ones. At least those stay in a computer.”

She picked up a pile and riffled through it, keeping the backs of the photos to Mary Beth. “If you want my opinion, sometimes the past is best forgotten. But maybe someday my grandchildren will want to know who their kinfolk are. These right here are the cousins and second cousins.”

She slid the photos into a manila envelope and wrote Cousins on the top. Then she tucked in the flap and set the envelope aside.

Mary Beth decided she was going to have to be a little less discreet. “Would you mind if I looked through some of these, Alma?”

The older woman didn’t seem inclined to say yes to that suggestion.

“Not just yet. I don’t want to get ’em mixed up.”

“I understand.”

“Would you hand me another manila envelope?”

Mary Beth obliged, sneaking a peek at the remaining piles on the table when Alma lifted her hand to take the envelope from her. There was Parr, in a football team sweatshirt. She’d been right about the awful college haircut. His youthful smile more than made up for it. But there was the same wary look in his dark eyes. Like he didn’t trust anyone, even when he was smiling.

“I should have done this years ago. I hadn’t realized that so many of the photos were here—God knows there’s hundreds more in my closet.”

“You had two kids. So there’s twice the number of photos.” Mary Beth meant to reassure Alma. She did think there were nowhere near that many from her own childhood. Still, her father hadn’t let them languish in boxes.

“Maybe so. But my sons might never get around to sorting it all out. Men don’t understand what’s important and what’s not.”

“My dad does. He did our photo albums.” Howard had learned traditionally female tasks without complaint.

“Your father is a very good man. There’s nothing he didn’t do for you.” Alma was thoughtful. “I wonder if being a single dad is easier than being a single mom.” She sighed before she answered her own question. “It’s a struggle no matter what. But worth it.”

Mary Beth reached for another manila envelope. “Should I put the ones of Parr in here?”

Alma picked up a pen. “Let me write his name on it first.”