Waking up to Sarah Buchanan in my arms was an everyday reminder that I was the luckiest fucking guy in the world.

The only difference today was…

I knew I’d have to earn that luck.

Sarah, always the heavier sleeper, was nestled up beside me as I lifted my head from the pillow. Carefully extracting my arm from under her neck, I moved around her like a ninja until I had both feet on the ground.

Not two minutes later, I’d quietly closed the door behind myself and was taking advantage of a sudden, interesting reality.

I was alone in Jack Buchanan’s house.

As a younger man, I would have looked for any possible way to get the upper hand on him, or even prank him. But the experiences I’d had since we’d last crossed paths had made me a tougher, wiser man, and I had a better objective in mind.

I wanted to understand him.

There was no sign of the old, hateful bastard anywhere that I looked. Free to roam the house, I decided to linger in the main hallway to study those portraits that had caught my eye before.

The earliest pictures were from another era. Faces I’d never seen before stared towards me in faded black and white photos, their faces stoic and firm. It was as if they, like Jack, were judging me for daring to be in Sarah’s life.

The faces told me a story.

Jack’s parents were hard workers. They didn’t seem to have much; they wore plain clothes, and his mother wore only the barest jewelry. For fun, his father enjoyed working on their old car, while his mother liked to read and dance. But they were happy together, the two of them, carving out their own little life on a small ranch.

Their expressions grew steadily colder as they brought a son into the world. Something changed between them as Young Jack entered the picture, and the few photos of him showed a happy child that became slowly glum and downtrodden.

This kid can’t be older than six years old, I thought to myself as I studied his face. What could have taken the happiness out of him?

It was around this time that the second boy arrived on the scene. As if new life had been breathed into their world, this is right where the photos made the switch to color.

Oddly, Jack’s parents seemed happier about this new addition to their lives, and their spirits visibly lifted in the photos. A burst of activity showed that his mother had taken up some kind of sewing club, working on patchwork quilts with other women her age; his father, on the other hand, was seen in a couple of bar settings, drinking beers in a group or playing cards with his pals.

But the tide turned again.

Strangely, Jack disappeared from the photos, the only explanation being in the strained faces of his parents. His younger brother grew up rapidly through the few pictures that existed now, and I studied his wide, smiling face in a staged family portrait.

This was a kid that didn’t know strife.

I turned back to Jack’s last, sullen picture.

Why are these two boys living such different goddamn lives? I wondered to myself.

That’s when I noticed that the younger kid wasn’t in the photos anymore. Confused, I took a look further down the line.

Nope.

He was nowhere to be seen.

But this is where things got weird: Jack was back in the picture. Literally. He was several years older now, probably in his lower teens, beaming as if nothing had happened.

What on Earth…?

But that happiness only lasted for a few photos, because soon teenage Jack was back to looking as plainly miserable as before. Hell, he looked possibly worse.

His parents looked just as cold as ever. They were only in a few more photos, looking bored or detached, and then the photos sprung forward two decades to a woman who looked too much like Sarah to be a coincidence…

A loud tap came from nearby.

“What are you doing in here?”

I was torn from the dozens of photographs on the wall. Sarah’s father leaned against his cane in a nearby doorway, glowering at me.

“These pictures,” I replied coolly, lifting a finger towards the wall. “This is you? And… these are Sarah’s grandparents?

Jack simmered, a scowl on his face.

“My family history is none of your business.”

He tried his damnedest to hide it, but the older man looked downright vulnerable in his gnarled, sun-beaten face. I could see how his eyes bounced from me, to the pictures, and then back to me again. It was as if he was trying to quickly pick apart what I might have learned.

For the first time in my life, I felt the smallest shred of empathy for Jack Buchanan.

“If you’re up, then make yourself damn useful for once,” Jack demanded as he hobbled past me. “I made dinner. You make breakfast.”

I smiled to myself.

“Breakfast is my specialty.”

Jack glanced over his shoulder in a huff, but he didn’t stop to argue with me. As I followed him away, I threw one last look over at the framed pictures on the wall. Five minutes alone with them, and I felt as if maybe I understood this man just a little better.

It was as we stepped into the kitchen that I realized I had overlooked a small detail… That set of pictures was the only thing in this entire house that had any dust on it.