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and happy. Strolling down the cobblestone streets of Shockoe Bottom with his tie expertly knotted around his neck, Garth felt like someone other than himself. Or maybe he just felt happy for the first time in a long while.
    â€œI have a surprise for you guys,” Mike said as they were pulling up in front of the apartment in his mom’s station wagon. “It’s in my car. I’ll meet you in a sec.”
    Garth and his mom went inside, sat in the living room, and waited. When Mike came in, he was holding a shoe box with a rubber band around it.
    â€œI’ve had these for years. They’re of me and Jerry. I thought you might like to have them.” He sat in the armchair next to the couch and handed Garth’s mom the box.
    â€œOh, Mike,” she said, “are you sure?”
    â€œI have more. You guys should have these.”
    â€œWell—thank you.” She took the rubber band off, lifted the lid, and began sifting through the snapshots, passing them to Garth one at a time. “They’re wonderful. I have maybe one picture from Jerry’s childhood. I think it’s of him on a swing set, wearing striped pants.”
    â€œI remember that swing set,” Mike said. “We got it for our fourth birthday.”
    â€œThese really are priceless.” She handed snapshot after snapshot to Garth, who collected them all in his lap, absorbing the images. How strange to see his grandmother slim and smooth-skinned and dark haired. Stranger, still, to see so many pictures of the two interchangeable boys. As they neared the bottom of the box, Garth was conscious of the fact that there wasn’t a single picture of them together in adulthood. The most recent photo was of the two of them standing side by side at what looked to be a carnival. They weren’t boys, but they weren’t quite men yet, either. Maybe seniors in high school. Garth could easily tell them apart at that age, even though they were “identical.” His dad was on the left, his arms folded across his chest. Mike was on the right, hands buried in his pockets. Neither one of them was smiling. If it weren’t for the fact that they were twins, they might have looked like two strangers in a crowd.

3
    T he next morning, after Garth’s mom left for work, Mike continued to make himself at home. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and spent a couple of hours on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, clicking through the four television stations they got with what seemed to be a sense of curiosity rather than a need for entertainment—as if he were observing an entirely new culture. “Who’s the guy on the horse?” he asked while he was watching the local news. “They keep cutting to that same statue before they go to a commercial.”
    Garth was just coming back into the room, his arms filled with dirty laundry—the next item on his list of chores. It almost felt as if he had a lazy older brother in the house rather than an uncle—but he was happy that Mike felt comfortable here, and glad for the company. “That’s Robert E. Lee.”
    â€œReally? What’s he, the town mascot?”
    â€œPretty much.”
    â€œI would have thought that’d be what’s-his-name. The Lincoln counterpart.”
    â€œJefferson Davis?”
    â€œHim,” Mike said.
    Garth shrugged. “He’s got a statue, too. A couple of them. But Lee’s is bigger.”
    â€œIt’s all about size,” Mike said.
    Garth carried the laundry into the kitchen, where the stacked washer/dryer unit was tucked into a tiny closet. He’d just turned on the washing machine—it rattled like an old boiler against the confines of the surrounding walls—when the phone rang.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œOkay, so my mom isn’t devoting all her energy to telling me I’ll never make a dime off my art, and for the first time in my life I’m thankful to