Chapter 6: The Man in Columbus

Mitch leaned over my shoulder.

"Is that Keith?"

"That's Keith."

"In your grandma's locket."

"In my grandma's locket."

"Huh," he said. "He's got a real confident little face in there."

Norma got up, opened her junk drawer, and handed me a butter knife without a word.

I worked the tip under the edge of the photo.

Keith came out in one piece, a tiny oval of him smiling at somebody's wedding.

The space behind him was empty.

My grandparents were gone.

I turned the locket over in my palm, looking for them.

"She threw them out," I said.

"Maybe not," Norma said.

"She sold the locket for forty dollars with a stranger's face in it. She threw them out."

Nobody argued with me.

Mitch took the tiny picture of Keith off the table, looked at it, and dropped it into Norma's garbage disposal.

Then he flipped the switch.

"Mitch."

"What? It was in the way."

Norma laughed so hard she had to sit down.

I closed the locket and put it on, broken clasp and all, and tied the chain in a knot behind my neck.

That night I spread my label photos across the card table in the garage.

The plain brown boxes had all come through shipping counters.

Shipping counters make you put down a phone number.

The man in Columbus had sent nineteen boxes, and his number was printed on every one.

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