Bob continued, his coffee growing cold. “This photo, it’s in half-light.”

“What do you mean?” Colleen leaned closer.

“When a photo is at half-light, part of the image is dimmed.” He brushed his hands together. “I’m an amateur photographer, so I’m just showing off my knowledge a bit.”

Colleen nodded. “Go on.”

Bob’s hand, calloused and freckled, wavered over the photo. “It’s the light we see at dusk or dawn, and it doesn’t reveal everything, only a portion of what would be in the photo if it was in full light. Sometimes a photographer deliberately slows the shutter speed for effect, but here it’s actually dusk. That day we left at dawn and were out on the river all day. Not much was said between us.” Bob paused, turning his coffee mug in his hands, around and around, and then added a packet of sugar. Finally he looked up. “We traveled our way through marshes that your dad knows as well as his own backyard, and then we went out into the ocean, which we rarely did. We’d packed beer and sandwiches, but your dad didn’t eat or drink a thing all day, until I became concerned. Then he caught a record-breaking cobia, only to release it, saying he could not bear one more death on God’s earth. He’d suffered too many losses. He threw that fish back into the ocean. It was the only time I ever saw him cry.”

Colleen placed her hands over Bob’s, gave them a squeeze. “Too many losses?”

Bob stared off behind Colleen as though he could see into that day he and his best friend had gone fishing. When his gaze returned to Colleen, it was filmed with unshed tears. “Yes. Too many losses.”

“More than Mother?” Colleen knew the answer. Yes, of course there was more than Mother; she, too, had left her dad alone in Watersend.

But Bob didn’t say this; he merely nodded and coughed. “We all have losses in our life. All of us.”

“What were the ones that broke Dad’s heart?” Colleen asked, her pulse beating in her throat. These were the unseen memories she wanted to tap—the ones not captured in a photo.

Bob smiled at her and finally took a sip of the coffee she’d bought him. “I thought you just wanted the story of the photo.”

“I want everything, Bob. Everything you know.”

He shook his head. “I’ve known you since you were a baby. Isn’t that amazing?”

Colleen nodded. “Yes.”

“But you’ve been gone for quite a while now, Lena.”

“I know, but I’m here now.” She took the photo from Bob’s hands and slid it into the envelope where the others lay one on top of the other.