Margaret unwrapped the photograph from its brown paper packaging. She closed her eyes before looking at it. As excited as she was to see a new image of John, a myriad of them adorned every bit of her house, as if it had become a shrine. It was William’s visage (a delightful new word she’d learned and would have to share with him) that she was most eager to see. In these six months, his friendship had sustained her more than almost anything else. A letter in the mail with her name on it, inked in the careful and familiar handwriting of a soldier who described what newsreels and papers never could, was even more of a delight than the chocolates from Ebinger’s that had become Oliver’s habit to buy for them.

Hello, William, she thought as she held the photograph, wrong side up. It’s nice to finally meet you.

She opened her eyes and smiled at the picture of the three young men standing just beyond the cover of a thatched cottage roof. There was John, the top button of his shirt loosened, surely the first thing he did at the end of any training day. He’d never liked for his neck to feel encased. His grin was achingly familiar, the kind saved for their sibling antics, and it pleased her to know that William and Tom could elicit it. She held the picture to her heart and bent her head down. Despite all of the photographs in the house, this was, indeed, something to cherish. How thoughtful of William to have anticipated that.

To his left were the two other men. She walked over to the window and sat on the sofa where the waning sunlight of the afternoon cast its beam across the cushions. She flipped the photograph over, expecting some kind of mention of who was who, but it was blank. Could he really have forgotten to tell her?

With no hints, she looked at the picture more closely. The soldier right next to John was about the same height as her brother. His hair was shorn close to his head, hinting at its likely brown color. His forehead held the creases of someone who worried too much. She couldn’t tell if he was twenty, thirty, or forty. His face was ageless. Timeless. He was smiling, though not as widely as John. As if the camera had captured him one second behind the peak of a laugh.