Ivy always had trouble remembering what her dad looked like. Granny told
her that she used to live with him and her mom in the city when she was
really little, but all she knew was life at Granny’s cozy cottage. She
had gone back to the city to visit Mom a few times but never stayed for
too long. Somehow, there were never any photos of Dad in the apartment.
The large stain on the photo certainly did not help either. The dark
brown splotch seemed to splatter from the right edge, spreading over
most of the top half of the paper. It had mostly obscured Dad’s face. No
matter how much she tried holding the photo up to the light, the stain
seemed to deny her this memory.
That did little to stop Ivy from spending a great deal of time studying
this family portrait. She noticed how she had inherited Dad’s thick grey
fur, while mom had a warm brown coat. Around his neck was a small piece
of oval obsidian on a short silver chain.
Leaning over the edge of her bed, she opened the top drawer of her
dresser. There it sat, as dark and inscrutable as always.