He worked in construction for most of his life. Why?”
She shrugged and said she’d seen an old photograph of him wearing a suit with unusually wide shoulders.
I told her that was simply how suits looked back then.
She nodded and changed the subject.
A few weeks later, she asked whether I had any old family photographs from the 1970s.
Then she asked whether my grandmother had kept letters.
Then, one evening, she asked a question that struck me as strangely specific.
“Did your grandfather ever have a brother?”
