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The next photo was of Selene. She was scarily thinner than what was classified as petite, but she held a birthday cake and wore a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “My father was supposed to pick me up from school on my birthday. He promised me ice cream cake. He never showed up. My mother spent every dime she had on this cake to make up for it, even though that meant we wouldn’t have food for the next week or so. Not until she got paid again.”
Franky squeezed my hand tighter, but otherwise he kept quiet, letting Jasper have the floor.
“And this photo,” Jasper said, “was taken at a shelter we’d had to stay at for a while when Mom couldn’t afford the rent increase.” Jasper slept curled up on a cot in a tiny room. A thin jacket had been thrown over him in place of a blanket. “It was cold, and there were more displaced families than resources,” he said. “Mom gave me her jacket while she went without.”
The next photo showed Jasper and Selene having a picnic in a rose garden. She’d gained some weight, and Jasper’s eyes were no longer a dull green. They were both smiling into the camera, so unlike their expressions in the other photos. “This was a month after moving in with you,” Jasper said, his breathing going shallow.
“And this,” Jasper said, moving on to a photo of Franky sitting at his bedside while he slept. “This was you sneaking into my room to sit with me while I slept. I’d been sick.”
“Do you remember this day?” he asked Franky, pointing to a photo of him sitting astride a horse and dressed head to toe in equestrian gear.
“Th-that’s the day you won your first medal.” Franky picked up the photo, bringing it in close. “I was there that day. I was there for that,” he said, as if he’d forgotten all about it.
“Yeah, you were,” Jasper said hoarsely.
“You’d wanted me to come to your practice lesson the day before, but I couldn’t make it,” Franky said.
“Funny,” Jasper said. “When I think back on winning my first race,thisis the day I think about. The day you were there.”
Franky nodded, blinking back tears. He picked up the next photo and chuckled. “Christmas morning. You’d snuck down to open your gifts while we were asleep, but this year your mother didn’t label them, thinking it would stop you. Instead, you opened all the gifts under the tree. She was so upset. She’d worked hard wrapping all these herself. She’d wanted me to help, but I had business to take care of at Nexcom,” he said, sounding a little dejected about it.
“Wanna know what I remember?” Jasper asked.
“Yes,” Franky said like it was a plea.
“You’d had extra gifts hidden around the house—granted you hadn’t wrapped them or shopped for them yourself, but you were prepared for my Christmas mischief, and your gifts came in handy. Everyone had something to open on Christmas morning.”
“You were a Christmas menace,” Franky said playfully.
“And once again, you saved the day.”
Jasper pointed to the next photo, no longer explaining, because by now we understood the meaning behind all of this. There were photos of Franky at Cole’s piano recitals, photos of him at their graduations, and even pictures of him and Selene during happier times. Seeing a shot of them hugging would’ve sent me into a jealous spiral in the past, but not anymore. I would welcome fond memories of her, welcome getting to know her through their eyes, welcome comforting Franky during bouts of sadness because she was gone. That was what families did for each other.
Franky applied pressure to my hand once more, his silent way of letting me know he was okay, before letting go. He scooped up photo after photo, adding commentary for some, while simply smiling down at others.
“What do you see when you look at these photos?” Jasper asked Franky. “Do you see the bigger picture they make?”
Franky dried his eyes with the hem of his shirt, then looked at them all again. “There was a time when all I’d see were the ones that were missing. A time when I would think for every single photo here, there were at least ten others that would show the truth. Show the times I hadn’t shown up for you all, the times you weren’t my priority, the efforts I hadn’t made.”
“But now?” I said, chiming in. “What do you see now, Franky?”
“Now I see that I wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t all bad either.” He caught his sob in his hand.
“That’s what we all see, Franky,” I said, scooting my chair closer to him and gripping his nape. “That’s what we all are. Imperfectly perfect.” I wanted to kiss him, to hug him, to whisper all the words to make his tears recede, but this was their moment, and so I fell into the background again.
“I understand you in a way that Cole doesn’t,” Jasper said, sniffling through his own emotions before running down the list of things that made him and Franky similar. “I was married—unhappily so. I married Daniel for reasons other than love. I had an extramarital affair and then for a short time I gave up the man I loved for my marriage.” Jasper looked to me then, to the man Franky had given up for his own marriage. “Cole swears it doesn’t make me a bad person, though.”
“It doesn’t,” Franky said vehemently, his unconditional love on full display.
“Thanks,” Jasper whispered thickly, as if he’d needed that validation from Franky. “I looked at all these pictures and realized that you aren’t a bad person either. Yousavedus. You gave me and my mother a life we wouldn’t have had without you. You gave me Cole. Things happen. I know that. And as much as I loved her, I needed to accept that things—good and bad—were allowed to happen to her too. To the both of you.”
Franky completely broke then, giving sound to his pain and his happiness. They both did, and seeing them stand and meet to cry into each other’s arms made me break too.
Franky needed this. No matter how evolved he’d become throughout the years, there had been a cap on that evolution, a ceiling he couldn’t break through because of our secrets and lies. He was free now. We all were. And we’d grow even stronger because of it.
“I made it!” Cole said, bursting through the doors out of breath. “I made it.” He scanned over all the wet faces in the room, including mine, and took in Jasper and his father hugging. “You came,” he said to Jasper, rushing over to join in on the hug.
Jasper and I exchanged a look over Franky’s trembling shoulder. I gave him a nod of thanks, and he gave me one in return before reaching out for me. I was out of my chair so fast it toppled back in my wake.
