Natalie crossed the room and knelt down on the floor in front of Edith’s chair, and the two of them held onto each other, and for a while there was nothing anybody could have said.

Then Natalie opened her leather album and drew out an old, faded color photograph — a little girl of three in a yellow sundress, standing in front of a wooden house.

Edith touched it.

“Your house,” she said.

“It’s the only picture my parents had left of it,” Natalie said, and turned the photo over.

On the back, in faded blue ink, someone had written: For Mrs.

Edith Ledbetter, who gave our daughter back to us. “My mother wrote that,” Edith said softly, “while you were still in the hospital.