Her name had been Victoria Lawson. She was young in the picture, maybe 20, maybe 21, standing in a garden somewhere, her head tilted back slightly, laughing at something just outside the frame. She looked free. She looked like someone who had not yet been hurt by the world.
Rebecca looked at that photograph every morning. Not always for long. Sometimes it was just a glance, a greeting, almost a way of saying, I remember you. I still carry you with me. This morning she looked at it a little longer than usual. She was not sure why. She touched the edge of the frame gently, the way she always did, then set it down and finished getting ready.
Her mother had raised her alone from the very beginning. Rebecca had grown up knowing only 1 parent, 1 pair of hands that braided her hair in the mornings, 1 voice that said her name at night, 1 person who showed up every single time.
Victoria had worked as a seamstress, taking in clothes to mend and alter from people in the neighborhood. She worked from a small table near the window, her needle moving fast and steady, her reading glasses sliding down her nose. They did not have much, but they had enough. Victoria made sure Rebecca always felt it.