“Did he tell you what he was asking me to do?”
“No.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The little boy was sitting on a front step, squinting into the sun.
He was wearing a striped shirt with a small stain near the collar.
He looked like a child who had just been called in from playing and hadn’t quite stopped moving yet.
He looked exactly like Mark.
“I need to sit down,” I said.
The doctor led me to a small waiting area off the main corridor.
Two chairs, a low table, a window that looked onto a concrete wall.
He brought me a cup of water I didn’t drink.
“Is there someone I can call for you?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
He nodded and left me alone.
I sat with the letter in my lap and the photograph face-up on the table.
I looked at Daniel’s squinting face.
