Hannah stares at her, amused and endeared. “They’re mine to share as I see fit. And I… I’d like you to look.”

With a deep breath, stomach in a strange sort of excited butterfly feeling, mixed with what feels like the most anticipation she’s ever experienced.

The first image makes her freeze.

“It’s… me,” she breathes, eyes scouring the drawing.

Like all of Hannah’s drawings that she’s seen, it’s a pencil image – or charcoal? – she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that the angles of her face look perfectly proportioned, her nose coming to the little point, the small dimple next to her mouth shaded in what looks like… a mirror image.

It’s dated, no words next to it, for early February.

“It is,” Hannah sounds sheepish, before she rolls her lips and nods at the other images. “They all are.”

“All?” Suddenly itching to tear through them, she makes herself go slow. Curious and amazed, she flips the page like it’s delicate, to the next one.

Then the next.

And the next.

This one is dated for Easter, and it’s Caroline’s profile. There’s a glint in her eyes as she looks at something and she realizes that Hannah must have drawn this one while actually watching her.

I expected her to be from Michael’s background. There’s something about Caroline Parker that’s always come off like she knows just where every conversation is going and she’s ready to take on the world. Like she is that smart, that prepared, that sharp.

But her parents live in the projects in Mission Hill. Not that different than where I grew up.

She isn’t entitled at all. She just really is that smart, that prepared, and that sharp. She’s just the type of person who will take on my case pro bono and work over my paperwork late at night, and make jokes with my daughter the next day. I don’t understand her.

And I do.

More and more drawings of her, and Caroline is shaking her head while her heart just pounds. She never knew that Hannah paid this much attention to her, this whole time. She’d never even fathomed…

But here she is. Week after week. Her face, her smile, her entire body. Her sitting on the couch, her drinking a coffee, her holding a pen while staring at a brief.

The next one, of her on the Fourth of July, and it’s her from the waist up, but – it’s almost like she’s staring into a camera. There isn’t any color, but whatever she sees in her own eyes in this drawing makes her mouth fall open. What’s written is a short, quick scribble.

Nice dark eyes. Rich, thick hair. Good genes.