"I take a lot of pictures," he said. "Thirty-one years in this room. Weddings, babies, graduations, funerals. I've done portraits for people the week before they went into hospice. I don't remember most of the faces. You can't, or you'd never sleep." He took his glasses off again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I remember that morning, though. I'd remember it anyway. You don't forget a girl walking in here with a hospital bracelet on, holding a baby she's about to give away. But that's not why I knew you tonight. I knew you tonight because I've looked at that picture every August for seventeen years."
Natalie went very still.
"Ruth Hollis came back," he said. "The next year. On Claire's first birthday. She brought her in, in a little yellow dress, and she said she wanted a portrait. Just Claire. And she said, Calvin, I want you to keep these in the same file as the first one. Every year. So that if Natalie ever comes looking, there's one place where she can see every year at once."
Natalie made a sound. It was not a word.
"She came every year," Calvin said. "Every August. Sometimes Martin came, mostly not; he hated having his picture taken. But Ruth brought Claire every single year. Two years old, crying the whole time. Five, missing her front teeth. Nine, with a cast on her arm, she'd fallen off the monkey bars. Thirteen, wouldn't smile, wouldn't take off her sweatshirt. Sixteen, with her learner's permit, made me take one of her holding it up. Every year, when I pulled the file to put the new ones in, there you were. First picture. Same girl, same blue sweater, same look on your face. I've seen your face more often than I've seen my own brother's."
He put his glasses back on.
"And every year," he said, "before she left, Ruth would ask me the same thing. She'd say, Has she come in? And I'd say no. And she'd nod, and say, Well. Maybe next year."