The routine was one he was sure would never leave him. Where once it had been something he had done upwards to a dozen times an hour, these days it was rare that he caught himself drawing it out more than twice. It seemed only natural for it to be one of the first things he did in the morning, and one of the last things he did at night, a way for him to remain connected to a part of himself that was no more.
You wouldn't think that a small photograph could hold such power, but the one in his wallet did just that, freezing forever the faces of his wife and daughter at a time when they had thought life couldn't have gotten any better. He'd alway regretted that the photo lacked the one face he missed seeing the most, that of the son he and Danijela had shared, their youngest child, just six month's old at the time it was taken.
So, even now, fifteen years after they were all gone, he still found himself slipping the small photograph from the plastic sleeve before he tucked it in his pocket, then repeating the process as he removed it at day's end.
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