It was the photos she brought. Everything had been vague, a blur until that moment. Life seemed to be fuzzy, and Michael couldn’t shake the feeling that he was always forgetting something. When he felt the gloss of the photo against his leathery hand, though, something inside clicked. He started approvingly through the sequence. At first the gloss just felt good on his hands as he listened to the drone of his daughter’s voice. The air was thick with her words and he didn’t hear them as much as he just heard sounds. The man he perceived to be himself advanced through the stack of photographs again. This time, though, memories began to flood over him like lava pulsating from a volcano, charring and carrying away all things with it. There was the sound of a child screaming, the feel of holding a baby for the first time, terrifying and yet so purely beautiful; the grandeur and illumination of the ferris wheel at the county fair. Michael felt something inside of him that he hadn’t for a long time: clarity. He jumbled through the photographs once more.