Mirrors had been carefully removed from her room years ago. If she was to spend so much time within these four walls, she didn’t want to face the reflection she had long avoided—an image that whispered doubts she was too tired to fight. Better to live surrounded by memories, even if they blurred, than to confront a face she never enjoyed to begin with.


Martha rubbed her eyes. Must’ve been the glare from the lamp or the twitch in her cataracts again. She squinted at the picture—faded, the colors worn soft with time. A girl stood in a field of gold, her hair caught mid-laugh in the wind. Eyes wide, lips parted like she had something to say.


The old woman leaned closer in her armchair, creaking with the effort. That picture had been there forever. People always asked about it, nurses and nieces alike. “She’s lovely,” they’d say. “Who is she?”


Martha would smile politely. “I don’t remember.”


But tonight, the girl blinked.


And somehow, that blink stirred something deep in Martha’s ribs. A flicker behind her eyes. The smell of lilacs. The sting of salt air. The thud of a heart that once ran faster.


She sat back, her fingers trembling on the armrest. The girl blinked again—and smiled.


Martha didn’t return it.


She wasn’t sure how.


Her lips, thin as paper now, didn’t curve so easily anymore. She reached for her tea, forgotten on the side table, and found it cold. The lamp flickered slightly, casting a warm pool of light that just missed the photo frame. Shadows stretched long along the wall. The room, like her mind, was quiet.


She studied the frame. Wood, painted white, now chipped at the edges. Someone had written on the back once, she remembered that much. She had tried to turn it over once, to read it, but her hands had hurt that day. They hurt most days now.


She looked at the girl again. That smile—there was something about it. Not just the tilt of the lips, but the eyes. That look in them. Familiar, but far away. Like someone she once knew, maybe.


Was it... Lily? No. That was her sister. Or perhaps her cousin. Lily had a dimple when she smiled. This girl didn’t.

She sat in silence, letting the tick of the clock fill the room.


The photo had hung there for years, she supposed. Right above the fireplace, just where her husband—no, wait. Did she have a husband? She couldn’t quite remember. There was always someone coming in and out of her mind. Sometimes he had a mustache. Other times he smelled like smoke.

She blinked slowly, like the girl had done.


A mirror image.


And then, just beneath her ribs, something tugged.


She remembered standing in a field once. The grass up to her knees. Barefoot, skin warm from the sun. Someone was calling to her. She was laughing. She remembered laughing.


The girl in the photo hadn't stopped smiling.


The room faded, as if someone turned the volume down on time. She was no longer in the armchair.


Instead, she was standing in the golden field, camera in hand. The breeze stirred the grass. A girl stood a few feet away, her dress fluttering, arms loose at her sides, eyes bright like she knew a secret. Martha lifted the camera, hesitated.


The girl's smile wavered.


Something inside her stirred, uncertain.


She didn’t press the shutter. Not yet.


Suddenly, the young girl looked directly at Martha. Not through her, not past her—at her.


"Why aren't you taking my picture?" she asked, voice light but laced with something deeper.


Martha opened her mouth. "... I—"


The girl took a step forward, grass whispering at her ankles.


"... Am I too ugly?"


The question hung there. Not accusing, not weeping. Just... quiet. Like a petal falling.


Martha's hands trembled on the camera. She didn’t know how to answer.


She didn’t know if she could.


Martha stared at the girl—at the sunlight in her hair, at the worry in her brow. That question echoed in the field, louder than any wind.


“…Am I too ugly?”


Something cracked open inside her. Not like breaking glass, but like an old drawer creaking wide after years of being stuck shut. She looked at the girl—not as a stranger now. Not fully. There was something painfully familiar about the way she shifted her weight, her arms folded protectively across her stomach, her eyes not meeting hers anymore. That face. That question.


She knew it. She remembered it.


She had grown up around voices that didn’t bruise skin but left marks all the same. Comments like feathers—light, casual—but layered until they smothered.


"You’d be prettier if you lost a few pounds."


"Your sister never had trouble finding a date."


"Such a smart girl, at least."


"Not everything’s meant for everyone, Martha."


So she learned to fold herself into smaller and smaller corners, hoping one day someone would look at her and not flinch. Hoping to one day belong in someone’s eyes. And now, here she was—sent back, not as the girl in the frame, but as the one holding the lens. Holding the power.


Her voice came, soft but steady, the weight of a lifetime behind it.


"No," she whispered, her lip trembling. Then louder: “No. You could never be ugly.”


The girl looked up. Her eyes widened—not with disbelief, but with the kind of wonder only children have when they hear something they never expected, but always needed.


A smile began to bloom on her face—slow, wide, sunshine-wide.


Martha didn’t hesitate this time.


Click.


The shutter echoed, not like a camera, but like a door gently closing.


And just like that, the field faded.


She was back in her armchair, the teacup still untouched, the photo still hanging above the hearth. But something had changed.


The girl in the photo was smiling wider now—brighter, freer.


Martha smiled too. A small, bittersweet smile tugging at her lips, not for anyone else to see.


The kind of smile you wear when something broken inside finally settles into place.


For once in her life, she had said what she always needed to hear.


And for once, she believed it.