Inside the garbage can sat a small stack of photos, mixed with discarded plastic containers and food scraps. Nearby, another photo was hidden halfway underneath an empty hummus container, and more were mingled with a dirt-smeared Christmas card. I crouched down next to him for a long time, looking at his face and wondering how he got there, all alone. I spotted the boy’s blond hair first next to an overturned garbage can, twigs and pebbles arranged on top almost artfully. Walking home from grad school one day last winter, I found these photographs in an alley. There are five other photographs from the same evening in different combinations: father and mother, father and son (twice), mother and daughter, and the whole group once more. The boy doesn’t smile, but everyone looks happy. They pose in front of the mantel, next to a grandfather clock. Behind his sister, their father, resting his hand on her arm. Perhaps that’s their mother behind him, her hand on his shoulder. He stands next to a girl a little older than him, perhaps his sister. His hair is shorter and he’s older, maybe 9, 10, 11. There he is again, now in a collared white shirt and gray pants. I imagine this is the boy’s birthday party. She holds a yellow plastic cup near her lips as though she’s about to take a drink. Behind him, in the left corner, an old woman, maybe his grandmother, sits at a picnic table, her head cut off above the eyes. He stands on a deck, and the trees beyond its rail echo the red-brown color of his shirt. His small hands clutch a sheet of white and blue stickers, which he holds by his face, a display for the camera. His blond hair is brushed across his forehead, almost into his eyes. He’s close to the lens, looking right into it, but he’s out of focus. His eyes squint against the summer light. The boy is not exactly smiling, but he does look proud.
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