Jack finds a photo album of Robby as a teenager. In most, he's all punk/grunge with cigarette burns on his fingers and dyed hair.
But he's always smiling. His eyes crinkling, nose scrunched, rabbit teeth pulling his lip.
He's wearing eyeliner, black feather earrings, and a The Cure t shirt, helping carry a couch into a tired looking house. The photo lopsided and blurry with the caption "Mikhail, dearest grandson."
"My growing boys " next to a photo of a mohawk, plaid covered Robby, holding a scruffy looking dog.
Jack flips through pages and pages of a young man that looks like the world is weighing on his shoulders, but for the person behind the camera, he'll always have a smile.
It makes him fall even more in love.
When he asks Robby, he blushes, mumbling about getting his Bubbe a new camera one year with his meager summer savings. She loved taking photos, and he could never tell her no, or to stop.
Robby then pulls out another album, all of his grandmother.
Her laughing, her dancing, her holding up a plate of food or an unpotted plant.
He tells Jack about taking as many as he can once she got sick because he realized why she loved taking photos.
"Memories are all we have of each other in the end." He whispers, thumbing a picture of a gap toothed kid holding the hand of a soft smiled woman.
Jack selects a few to hang on the wall, despite Robby hemming and hawing about how embarrassing it is.
(Robby's favorite photo is of an eighteen year old Jack wearing a bright orange crop top, holding a football, and laughing with his brothers. Red hair wild and curly, looking for all the world like he'll be this happy and free forever.)
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