“I have the photos you wanted framed,” I said. I was newly tentative around her—worried our closeness had diminished after I did not break her fall. I did not ask her about her ankle, because it didn’t matter anymore.

I had framed her photos myself in cheap black Ikea frames that I had found in my closet and worried that I should have taken greater care. It’s possible she would have appreciated something more gilded. I stared down at the photos of her father and mother. Her father didn’t look anything like I expected—anything like mine. I noticed how she was a facsimile of her mother. Just like I was. I tried to make this mean something.

Daphne had also asked that I frame a photo of her brother. She’d never talked about him to me, but her letter to him was tender, and she called him “sweetie” over and over again. The photo was of him as a little boy, staring out a car window dreamily while holding his chin in his little fist. She said it was her favorite picture of him, one taken after a day at the beach. But to me, his dreaminess translated into a certain kind of sadness.

“I can pull in another table so they’re right next to you.”

“Let me see them first.”

I handed them over to her, and she inspected them one at a time.

“A sweet boy,” she said. “Too sensitive for this world.”

She looked at me with tight rivers welling up around her lower lids.

“There’s another one I want. Can you take it off the wall in the living room and bring it to me? It’s the wedding picture.”

“Of course.”

I went to her living room and saw the tinted photo of her mother and father. Her mother was smiling and had her wedding gown swirled around her. Her father stood there proudly. Her mother’s lips were painted pink, and her hair was in an updo with ringlets. They looked like movie stars, but they weren’t. It was just the way people used to take pictures back then. Staring at its grandness made me realize I didn’t even know where all my wedding photos were.

I pulled the heavy frame off the wall and carried it to her room. I brought a table over, near her bed, and arranged all the frames in a way I thought might please her. The wedding photo was too heavy to prop on the table. Daphne directed me by pointing and not saying a word.

I propped it against the table legs so she could see all of her family at once.

“Where’s Pierre?” I asked.

“I didn’t want him to remember me like this. I already said my goodbyes to him. Remember, I want to be wheeled to the window so I can see the sun go down one last time.”