In each house we lived in growing up, I always knew where the photo albums were. In the house on Snag Lane in Spring, Texas they were in the wood-paneled living room, in one of the many built-in cabinets. I could pull out the albums and wedge myself between the orange couch and the cabinets, leafing through memories. I would usually set aside the large album with paper pages and a blue and teal cloth cover. This one held my parents’ wedding pictures, which I didn’t quite value at the time. The photographs were black and white after all. My favorites were an album with a cover that looked like basket weave, and one that had a slightly blurry close-up of white flowers on a background of leaves and stems. The photos were held down firmly on sticky pages underneath clear film. Turning the pages was time travel—sometimes to moments remembered only in photos, others, to glimpses of events well-remembered. There’s one of a naughty two-year old me, try...