The photograph was of a girl about twelve years old. Her face had lost its baby softness around the jaw, and she had an air of being about to change, of being not quite finished.

Her hair was dark, with the curls cut short and close around her face and the top of her head, but left in wavy long sausages past her shoulders on the back and sides.

She wore a brown, high-necked, yoked blouse with long sleeves puffed at the shoulder. There was no jewelry, no cosmetic assistance apparent.

Her expression was pained, as if she were unhappy with her appearance and not eager to be recorded by the camera at all. Her mouth was set and tight, as though she felt anger or anxiety. She looked as though she might roll her eyes in exasperation at any second. I could imagine her mother telling her to sit still, to be cooperative, to behave as she posed interminably for the photographer.

The photograph was fairly large, framed with glass, and marked $45.

I had less than $20 in my wallet, and maybe $300 in the bank until the next payday, more than two weeks away. I decided that it would be silly to spend the money on a photograph of someone unrelated to the family, but I felt sad as I turned away that her own family wouldn’t take care of her portrait.

When I told my husband about it when I got home, he asked why I hadn’t bought the picture, and I was reassured that I’d married well if he understood the desire to give that young girl a home again. He said we could make up a name and a story for her, tell it to visitors as if she were our aunt or cousin. I loved that he saw the potential in the photo of a stranger.