My memory’s broken, I’ve concluded. Storytellers return vividly to their pasts. I only remember remembering, the images grainier with each mental photocopy.

“Daddy!” the girl screams, nose crusted. She tugs my leg and flaps her arms.

I frantically shuffle though reams of fading prints. The ink smudges before it dries.

Andrew Dunn is a journalist and writer in Charlotte, N.C.