The Photograph

I bought the book for €2 at a small second-hand shop.

When I opened it at home, a photograph fell onto the floor.

It showed a young woman standing beside a lake.

On the back was written:

"Summer, 1964."

I thought nothing of it.

Until I noticed something else.

A name.

Margaret.

I searched online.

After several minutes, I found an obituary with the same name.

But the date didn't make sense.

Margaret was still alive.

I found an address.

I wrote her a letter explaining where I had found the photograph.

Two weeks later, I received a response.

She asked me to visit her.

When I arrived, she immediately recognized the photograph.

She began crying.

The woman in the photograph was her.

The man standing beside her was her fiancé.

They were supposed to get married that year.

He died three months later.

She had never seen the photograph.

It had been taken by a friend who disappeared from her life shortly afterward.

For sixty years, she believed every photograph from that summer was lost.

I gave it to her.

She held it against her chest.

Before I left, she said:

"You have no idea how much this means to me."

I thought I was buying a book for €2.

Instead, I returned sixty years of someone's life.