—hind you, holding the bag.
—appy anniversary. B.
I read it twice. I read it a third time, and on the third time the letters that were missing filled themselves in, the way the end of a song does when you've only heard the beginning.
Marcy. So you'll stop borrowing mine. Every picture you take, I'm in it somewhere, behind you, holding the bag. Happy anniversary. B.
B.
I looked up at my father. He was looking at the tag in my hand, not at me. His face had stopped being white. It was red now, blotched along the neck, the way it gets in winter when he comes in from shoveling.
"That's your handwriting," I said.
He didn't answer.
"Dad. That's your handwriting. That's how you write your B's." I knew it. I had seen it on a thousand report cards, permission slips, notes left on the counter: Pick up milk, back by 6, love you, B. He makes a B like a person in profile with a big belly. I had never once thought about it. Now I could not stop seeing it.
"It was your camera," I said. "You gave Mom this camera."