By Hook or by Wolf

I’m honestly kind of lame.

And now my daughter knows I’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to me. Great. I haven’t really hidden the fact that I’m a thief, but I’ve also reveled in the fact that I only steal from bad people who have either stolen or obtained the items they have by questionable means.

I’m just not the type of person who steals family heirlooms from someone.

“It’s pretty,” Rebecca says, touching the frame of the picture. I glance over and am surprised just how different the portrait looks in the sunlight. Now I can see the lovely trim and design of the frame. Coupled with the man’s excitement to be posing for the portrait, it gives off a renaissance-era style of loveliness.

“Very pretty,” I agree. I’m a little worried I’m losing my mind, though, because if it’s not just my imagination, then that guy in the painting? He’s hot.

Really hot.

Like, deliciously melt-your-panties-off hot.

“Where’d you get this?” Rebecca asks. She reaches into my bag and pulls out the other two portraits. She touches them and runs her hands over the frames. The frames are painted with flowers. Roses, daisies, tulips, and chrysanthemums cover the wood with bright, beautiful colors.

“I got it yesterday,” I give a non-answer. Rebecca either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“Wow,” she says. “It’s really cool.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I like the sapphires the best,” she says.

“What?”

Traffic starts moving again so I turn back to the road and keep my eyes firmly straight ahead. What does she mean, sapphires?

“Yeah, there are some sapphires here,” Rebecca says. “They’re built into the frame, I think. Either way, pretty cool. Maybe we should do this for ourselves sometime, or I could do it for my art project. The fair is next month. This kind of project could really boost my presentation. We should try it.”

“What? Putting jewels in our picture frames?”

“No,” she says. “We should try taking pictures together. As a family.”

It has been two years since Rebecca’s father passed away. I haven’t taken a lot of pictures since then, which is probably a terrible thing since I only have one child. I know that Rebecca misses her dad. I miss him too. Somehow, though, I’ve just never felt ready to take a “family” picture without him. He was my everything for a long time. He was precious to me.

Now I feel like I don’t have that much to live for anymore.

I have Rebecca, of course, but I miss Henry so much that it hurts.

He was quiet and kind and gentle. He was a very quiet soul. He was good to me, though. He was good to us.

I think Rebecca might be right, though.

It’s probably time to move on, or at least to move forward.

“We can totally take some pictures together,” I say.

“Cool. Then we can get frames like these,” she says. I chuckle and shake my head.

“You’ll have to help me make them,” I tell her. “Those are hand-crafted frames that probably took a ton of time to paint.”

“I’ve got time,” she says, not unkindly, and I have to smile at her words. Rebecca is an easygoing kid who is really fun to take care of. I know so many mothers who hate pre-teens but I’m totally crazy about mine. She’s fun to do activities with, but she’s old enough to understand the word no.

She’s willing to hang out and have fun with her friends, but she’s also unafraid to get silly, messy, and dirty. She’s willing to be wild. She’s willing to have fun. In many ways, my daughter is just like me. In others, she takes after her daddy.

Henry was a cautious man. He always liked to consider all of the options. He liked knowing what the pros and cons were in a given situation. He was considerate of everything he did.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find some craft supplies we can use to make frames,” I tell her. “And if we don’t have anything at home, I’m happy to take you to the store.”