The Before

Your mother handed you a box

and inside was a stranger

wearing your father's face.

Twenty-five, maybe.

A shirt you've never seen him in—

something with color, something that moved,

something that suggested he had

opinions about things like fabric,

like how he wanted to be seen.

Next to him, a woman.

Dark hair. A smile.

Someone you don't know.

Someone he doesn't talk about.

Someone who exists in this photograph

and nowhere else in your life.

His arm is around her shoulder.

His arm. On her.

Like they knew each other,

like they had made a decision together

to stand in front of a camera,

like there was a future

that included this moment.

But the future didn't include her,

not in the way that mattered,

and now you're holding this evidence

of a life he lived

before you were even a possibility,

before you were the thing

that made him choose

to stop smiling like that,

to wear different shirts,

to be the version of himself

you've always known.

The photograph is fading.

The colors are going grayscale.

Soon the woman will be barely visible,

soon even the shirt will blur,

and you'll have just the shape of him,

this unfinished person,

this stranger who came before.

You want to ask him about it.

You won't.

You already know the answer:

He'll tell you it was a long time ago.

He'll tell you it doesn't matter.

He'll tell you all the things

people say

when they're done with who they used to be,

when they've decided

that the before

doesn't get to claim

any of the after.

But it does.

It's here in your hands,

fading in its plastic sleeve,

proof that he was someone else once,

proof that he smiled differently,

proof that there was a woman

and a moment

and a future he believed in

before you arrived

and changed all of it.