Chapter 5 - The Photograph That Was Missing
Three days after graduation, Imani visited Rochelle.
Her aunt was sitting on the back porch with a glass of iced tea.
When Imani arrived, Rochelle pulled out the chair beside her.
"Come sit down, baby."
Imani sat.
For a moment, she watched a bird hopping along the fence.
Then she said, "I hurt him worse than I thought."
Rochelle didn't ask who she meant.
"I know."
Imani looked down.
"I thought saying sorry would help."
"It might. But it doesn't erase what happened."
"I know."
Rochelle studied her niece.
"Can I tell you something?"
Imani nodded.
"Your father called me a month before graduation."
Imani looked up.
"What?"
"He wanted to make sure I could come. He was excited because it was going to be the first time he watched you receive a college degree."
Imani smiled sadly.
"He kept talking about the ceremony."
"He did."
Rochelle leaned back.
"He also asked me what flowers your mother would've chosen."
Imani looked toward the garden.
"Yellow roses."
Rochelle nodded.
"He wanted her to be part of that day too."
Imani felt tears building again.
For years, she had sometimes imagined Daniel as a man who simply stepped into her life after her biological father disappeared.
But that wasn't what had happened.
He had made room for her.
He had made room for memories of her mother.
And he had even made room for the father she still hoped to know.
He had never demanded that loving him required forgetting anybody else.
"I want to make it right," Imani whispered.
Rochelle reached across the table.
"Then don't just try to make him stop being hurt."
Imani looked at her.
"Show him that you understand why he was hurt."
That afternoon, Imani went through a box of childhood photographs.
She found a picture from her middle school science fair.
Daniel stood beside her in an oil-stained shirt, smiling proudly.
Another photograph showed him teaching her to drive.
She remembered how nervous he had been when she first turned the key.
A third showed them outside her college dormitory.
Daniel was holding two suitcases.
Imani was laughing because he had insisted on carrying both.
She placed the photographs on her desk.
Then she opened her graduation album.
There were pictures with classmates.
Pictures with professors.
Pictures with Rochelle.
There was even the photograph Andre had taken outside the gate.
But there wasn't a single photograph of her and Daniel on graduation day.
She stared at the empty space in the album.
It wasn't simply that she had forgotten to take a picture.
She had made a choice that kept him outside.
That realization changed what she wanted to do.
She didn't need an expensive gift.
She didn't need to make a speech on social media.
She needed to stop treating him like somebody who would always be waiting in the background.
Imani picked up her phone and called Andre.
He answered after several rings.
"Hey, baby girl."
"Hi."
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah. I just wanted to tell you something."
Andre waited.
"I saw your graduation post."
He chuckled.
"Got a lot of likes."
"I want you to correct the caption."
Silence.
"What?"
"You wrote that you watched me graduate. You didn't."
Andre sighed.
"Imani, people say things like that all the time."
"I don't."
"You're really going to embarrass me over a caption?"
She took a breath.
"I'm not trying to embarrass you. I'm asking you to stop pretending you were somewhere you weren't."
Andre grew irritated.
"I came to support you."
"You came for a photograph."
"That's not fair."
"Then tell people what happened."
He was silent for several seconds.
Finally, he said, "Fine. I'll take it down."
"Thank you."
"And what about us?"
Imani hesitated.
"I don't know yet."
Andre said nothing.
"I wanted a relationship with you so badly that I ignored things I should've questioned."
"Imani—"
"I still want to know you. But I can't keep pretending you were the father who raised me."
She heard him exhale.
"I guess you've made up your mind."
"About the truth? Yes."
After ending the call, Imani sat quietly.
For the first time, she wasn't trying to make Andre into the father she had imagined.
And she wasn't asking Daniel to absorb the disappointment.
She was accepting both men for who they had actually been.
On Friday afternoon, she drove to Daniel's auto repair shop.
The garage doors were open.
A mechanic was working beneath a raised sedan.
Daniel stood at a workbench, examining a part under a bright lamp.
He looked up when she entered.
"Hey, Peanut."
The nickname nearly broke her heart.
"Hey, Dad."
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah."
He wiped his hands with a clean rag.
"What's up?"
Imani held up a garment bag.
Inside were her graduation gown and cap.
Daniel looked confused.
"What's that for?"
She took a breath.
"I don't have a picture with you from graduation."
He looked away.
"I know."
"I've got a bunch with everybody else."
He nodded.
She stepped closer.
"I can't give you back the ceremony. I know that."
Daniel remained quiet.
"But I'd like to take a picture with you."
His eyes moved toward the gown.
"Here?"
"Anywhere you want."
She smiled faintly.
"Maybe outside the shop. Where you taught me how to change a tire."
Daniel looked down at the rag in his hands.
Imani continued.
"I don't want to pretend this fixes everything. I just want a picture that tells the truth."
He looked up.
"And what's the truth?"
Her eyes filled.
"That you were my dad long before I knew how lucky I was."
Daniel swallowed.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Imani held out the garment bag.
"And this time, Dad, I don't want you standing behind the camera."
May you like
Her voice trembled.
"I want you standing next to me."
