You can blame purdy's pal for this one. She gave me the kernel of an idea, and I just ran with it!

A Life In Pictures

By WritePassion

"Hey honey, I'm home!" Yvette pushed through the back door and dropped the plastic bags on the counter, flexed her hand, and shook out the cramp from the twisted handles that cut into her skin. "Sam? Where are you?" She waved a stack of envelopes above her head. "I've got the pictures from our trip!"

She found Sam upstairs in the office. He sat at the desk in the room lit by a wall of open windows that let in the afternoon sun. His legs were extended with his ankles crossed on the surface, his body leaned back in the chair, and he seemed to be intent on something in his hands.

"Sam?"

"Huh? Oh, Eve, you're home!" He dropped the flat object into a shoebox in his lap, dropped the lid on the box, and tossed it onto the desk surface as he stood. "I didn't expect you to be home so soon."

"Where's Samuel?" She looked at him with suspicion as he stood near the desk.

Sam glanced at his watch. "He's been napping for an hour now. He'll probably be up soon. Espie doesn't get home from school for another two hours...why'd you ask?"

"You seemed to be in your own little world there for a bit." She smiled and stepped into the room. "What have you got there that you don't want me to see?"

"Uh, nothing." He put his hand in front of the box.

Yvette grinned and quickly reached around him in an attempt to grab the box, but he twisted and put his hand on it. She caught the edge of the top and pulled, and he pulled back. They heard old cardboard being stressed to its breaking point.

"What's the big deal about this box?"

"It's nothing, honey."

"They why are you protecting it..." Yvette worked her fingers under the cover and pulled harder, and the next thing they knew, the side collapsed and a pile of photographs exploded over the desktop and floor. She stepped back, and they cascaded down over Sam's feet.

"What are these?" She set the photo envelopes down on the desk edge and crouched to pick up the ones that fell on the floor. As she did so, she caught glimpses of a younger Sam and people she didn't know. "Sam, why were you hiding these from me?" She glanced up at him, a lump forming in her throat. "I thought we didn't have any secrets between us, unless they were classified."

"Yeah, well..." He hesitated because he really didn't have a good explanation. "I'm sorry. I don't know why. I was just going through one last box of stuff from my storage unit, and I found these."

"I thought you had pictures in albums."

"I do, but these, well, to tell you the truth, I thought they were long gone."

Yvette picked up the last photograph and carried them in both hands to the desk top, where she carefully tapped them into a neat pile. Some were larger than others, but they lined up with one common side and became orderly under her direction. She glanced down at the one on the top. It was a black and white portrait of a child no more than six months old. He was the spit and image of Samuel at that age. A wide smile crossed her face, and she looked up at him.

"Is this you?"

"Yeah." He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked away, as if the fact that he'd ever been that little was embarrassing.

"This is so cute! We should put this in Samuel's baby album juxtaposed with his picture. You look so much alike, it's unbelievable!" She paused and reached up to caress his cheek. "I don't understand why you feel these have to be hidden away."

"I know there are going to be some pictures in there that, well, shouldn't be on display. Burned is a more fitting option, I'd say."

Yvette's face turned serious. She picked up the photos that still lay on the desk, pressed the pile to herself and left the room. "I'll be right back."

Sam sighed and dropped into the chair. He muttered a curse at the box that gave up his miscalculated treasures and pushed it into the wastebasket to the right of the desk. Then he picked up the new photos that Yvette brought home and went through them. The pictures of himself with Yvette and the kids cheered him up. These were the times worth remembering with a camera.

In less than a minute, Yvette returned with a photo album. "I bought this to put our vacation pictures in, but I think these need a home before we put away the new photos." She smiled as she set the pile on top of the album and took his hand. "Come on, let's go sit in the dining room and look these over."

Sam let out a huge sigh. "Okay, but I don't think it's going to be as much fun as you think. These pictures are pretty boring."

"Let me be the judge of that." Yvette grinned with satisfaction as she led the way downstairs to the dining room.

Like Sam's office, the dining room had a recessed wall that jutted out from the house's main footprint. A bank of south-facing windows let in the light, and a long buffet served as a china and glassware cabinet. It was an almost exact replica of the one in their first house.

"This is the perfect place to spread out all these pictures. We can sort them chronologically and then put them into the album." She placed the album on the table and turned to cover the long counter with the pictures. Sam watched for a few minutes, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he spied some of the ones he wanted to confiscate before she got a look at them. "Don't even think it!"

"What? Think what?"

She turned and gave him a look she usually reserved for the children when they tried to get away with something. "I know you're thinking of stealing some of these, but you can't. I want an explanation why they seem so horrible that you can't even show them to your wife." She stood with her hands on her hips, gazing at him.

"I shouldn't...I don't want pictures attached to bad memories in the album." He mentally crumbled under her gaze and flapped a hand toward the photographs. "Fine, go ahead and look at 'em! But don't say I didn't warn you!"

"Help me sort these, please." Her voice came out soft as she gently clasped his arm. "Help me understand these photos, and we'll work together to make this a great album covering your past." She curled her arm around his waist and pulled him to the left side of the buffet.

"Can we get rid of the ones I don't want first?"

"Sure, if it'll make you more agreeable to do this."

"Thank you." He moved toward the right, his eyes scanning the pictures. He stopped at one that was out of focus and faded, and it was hard to see the subject matter.

"What is it?"

He flipped it over and read the back. "Poland, 1987. It was a woman I met there, Paulina. She was...an asset..." He let out a breath. "She was killed in the middle of a firefight. I don't even know why I kept this picture. It's not like I was in love with her." He shook his head. "She was the first asset I ever lost."

"I'm sorry." Yvette held him close. He turned and flipped the photo onto the dining room table. "Good idea, start a pile of the ones you don't want to keep."

He took about a half hour sorting through the pictures and every one that he wanted to throw away represented an asset or a friend who died under terrible circumstances. It was a macabre collection of people who were in the prime of their life, some of them smiling for the camera with the exuberance of youth and the false notion of immortality shining in their eyes. Some of them showed the aftermath, the blood and brokenness of war. Yvette could see why he wanted to be rid of those.

"I hear Samuel," Yvette said. "I'll get him."

"No, I can do it." Sam let out a sad exhalation and rubbed the sorrow from his face with one hand. "You have my permission to do whatever you want with those." He pointed to the small pile and left the room.

While he was gone, Yvette went to the kitchen, grabbed a rubber band from the junk drawer, and secured it around the pieces of Sam's life that he wished to discard. After hearing brief stories of the people in them, she couldn't bear to let them be tossed, shredded or burned. Not yet, anyway. For the time being, she stuffed them into the drawer, face down.

"Mommy, I wanna snack." Samuel stood before his father, looking up at Yvette with hope in his eyes.

Yvette turned and smiled down at her son. As time went by, he seemed to look more and more like his father. When he was first born he had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes like her, but the hair darkened and the eyes turned brown within the first six months. He had the Axe family nose and chin, and the cute little dimple at his left cheek when he smiled, like he did at that moment.

"What do you want, Sammy? An orange or graham crackers?"

"Gramma crackers."

"Okay, gramma crackers it is." She couldn't help but smile whenever he mispronounced things. It was too cute, and he would be little for only so long. One day he would get it right, but until then she treasured these times. "Sam, will you take him into the dining room? He can sit there and eat them and we'll work on the photographs."

"Sure. Come on kiddo, let's go look at some pictures!" Now that the photos from the tragic episodes of his life were out of sight, Sam seemed less resistant to continuing with the project.

After Yvette placed the broken up crackers in front of Samuel with a sippy cup of milk, she and Sam went back to work on the photos. They rearranged them chronologically. Yvette could only go by the age of Sam's face in the ones in which he appeared, or by dates stamped into the margins and corners. Sam went behind her and corrected the placement based on his memory.

"Okay, looks like that's all the photos in order, huh?"

"Yeah, as far as I can remember," Sam replied. He saw Samuel trying to get out of the chair, and he turned around to help him.

"Daddy, I wanna go outside."

"Maybe later, sport. Mommy and I are doing something right now."

"Oh Sam, why don't you take him outside? Maybe to the park or something? I can put these into the album now that they're sorted out."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive! I'll have this done in no time." She shooed them toward the door. "Go on, I'll be fine with this!"

"Thank you, sweetheart." He kissed her cheek, leaving a warm impression that lasted after the screen door slammed behind them.