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Next, we go through my worst years. Addicted. Feral. I look like shit, all fucked up and out of it. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen these because Yolanda never wanted our kids to know me this way.

Confronted with the evidence, it reinforces how this guy is still part of me. Even if I have no desire to shoot up anymore, young Beau is the devil on my shoulder. Trying to convince me it’d be okay to fuck Elodie.

Which it isn’t.

The next batch is a series of Yolanda and me. The early days, wrapped together on the tour bus. Our wedding. A few when she was heavily pregnant with Billie, flipping off the camera. Some baby pictures of the kids. Theo, an hour old, asleep on my bare chest.

Elodie touches this one with her index finger. Smiles.

“Can I ask you something not technically on the list?” She peers up at me, not waiting for my answer. “What do you miss most about Yolanda?”

Fuck.

There’s a million answers. The utter bliss of being together. Companionship. Friendship. She was my best friend. Unbelievable mother. Plus, we had so much fun.

I don’t say any of them. Elodie’s in my house now, with her knee pressing against mine. Eyes boring into my soul. The real answer is out before I can stop it.

“Making love with the woman who knew all of my secrets and loved me unconditionally. It’s the most intimate experience I’ve ever had.” My voice isn’t steady, and I don’t try to hide it. “She inherited the whole ugly catalog. The needles, the wreckage, the guy I keep locked up. All of it. I got clean for her, but I was a risk. Yolanda chose me every single morning, afternoon, and night. Right up until she couldn’t. It never occurred to me how our devotion to each other was the whole game. It’s devastating to know I’m never gonna have love like that again.”

Elodie reaches over and puts her hand on my face.

No warning. Palm to my jaw. Thumb at the corner of my mouth. She holds it there and realization jolts me to the core.

She can see all the way down to my soul too.

Every internal alarm goes off at once.

I don’t move.

I can’t.

“You will. Find love again, Beau.” Elodie fights tears. “You’ll meet somebody who knows everything about you and loves you with their entire soul. I know you will.”

She speaks from the bottom of her heart.

Her words gut me.

Elodie isn’t making a play. She’s not angling for anything. She’s twenty-two with her hand on an old man’s face, willing for him to have confidence in himself to find the kind of love he’s stopped believing he deserves.

She means every word of it.

Her hand is warm. Her thumb hasn’t moved off my mouth. All I’d have to do is turn my head half an inch and it would be over. The good years, the careful life, all of it traded for one taste of her.

The worst part is, I know how easy it would be.

She’d let me.

I carefully remove her hand from my face. Hold it a second between both of mine, then I set it back down in her own lap where it belongs.

“Enough of all this sappiness.” I shift to my knees and then stand. “It’s probably time to wrap up for the day. I have somewhere to be later.”

Elodie smiles and, with a maturity beyond her years, decides not to call me out on my obvious lie.

She gathers her stuff. I walk her to my front door. She leaves.

After she’s gone, I’m alone in my giant house full of photos and memories of my dead wife and understand, clear as glass, before the quarter is over, Elodie and I are going to fuck.

I’m powerless to resist.