Pulling the photos together into a thick pile, I go through them one by one. A lot of them are of nature—rocks, the lake, sunsets, sunrises, trees, flowers, birds, insects. There are also a ridiculous amount of pictures of me—diving, tanning on the dock, making faces, swinging my tennis racket around, doing cartwheels, hiding behind a handful of cards. My mother is also a favorite subject of May’s, but I don’t find anything suspicious looking.

I find another one of me and Ezra; this one has West in it as well. We’re all holding up jackknives and a piece of wood. I actually remember that day. Ezra and I had helped West put rocks into the dock crib, and as a reward he’d given us a wood-carving lesson.

We’d sat out on the front steps of the cottage. West had taken my hands in his to show me how to carve the wood without cutting myself. The rough calluses of his wide palms scratched the tops of my small hands, still soft and wrinkled from swimming for rocks.

In the photo, Ezra and I proudly hold up our carvings. He’d done a dog, its head too big for its body. I’d made a pretty good sailboat, and West had carved a bird.

Frustrated that I’ve found images of only the Avril Island that I already remember, I toss the photos back into the suitcase. Not thinking I’ll actually find anything, I stick my hand into the flat compartment on the roof of the case. My fingers brush paper, and I reach in farther to pull out a medium-sized manila envelope wedged deep at the very bottom. As I slide it out, my heart beats just a little bit faster.

Inside is a small stack of photos, obviously ones that May didn’t want out in the open. I take a big sip of my wine and ask myself if I’m really ready for the proof I’ve gone looking for. In truth, it’s a rhetorical question. Who is ever ready to have their mother fall from grace? So many of us have to work too hard to keep our parents on their pedestal as it is.

The first photo is of my mother and West, standing at the end of the dock, their backs to the camera. My mother is leaning into West, pointing at something out on the water. There’s a definite sense of familiarity between them and the skin of their bare arms is touching, but it’s no declaration of an affair.

Not on its own. The next few photos, though, are similar, my mother and West engaged in some activity or discussion, their bodies leaning toward each other, always some part of them touching—both unaware that they’re being captured.