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It was as Mary-Lou unpacked her clothes that Daphne spotted the framed photograph. A much smaller, younger Mary-Lou — barely more than two or three if Daphne had to guess — upon the shoulder of a man in a Naval uniform, sat much like a parrot would be placed. Mary-Lou was giggling with such abandon that Daphne couldn't help but smile as she looked upon the photograph.
"Say, I've never seen this on your table in the dormy," Daphne said, tapping the frame of the photograph.
"Oh…" Mary-Lou put aside the clothes she had taken out. "No. I don't take it out."
Daphne waited for an explanation for why Mary-Lou took a photograph to school that she never intended to place on display, wondering if she would ever have learnt of it had Mary-Lou not been spending the Easter hols with Daphne and her family.
When no explanation was forthcoming, and Mary-Lou took up the photograph in silence, Daphne pressed the matter further. "Is it your father?"
That got a nod, at least, though a long silence followed while Mary-Lou carefully set the photograph aside while she continued to take out her clothes.
"He's in the Navy," Mary-Lou explained eventually, when the silence went on for long enough that Daphne contemplated changing the subject. "I-I wouldn't want anyone to see him in his uniform and have it remind them of something terrible. But it's one of my most favourite photographs, so I couldn't bear to leave it at home."
"But whyever would anyone be upset?" Daphne asked.
A momentary flicker of sorrow crossed Mary-Lou’s features, replaced by a gentle smile. "Not everyone's father came back from the war."
Daphne's lips formed a tentative but silent 'oh', having not realised that to be the case for anyone in their dorm. Her mind already began to catalogue whose fathers she had heard spoken of in present tense — Darrell's, Sally's, Jean's… — before she caught herself, feeling altogether intrusive for even trying to work out who Mary-Lou knew something so personal about.
Pushing those thoughts from her mind, Daphne instead reached out and clasped one of Mary-Lou’s hands.
"That's awfully considerate of you," Daphne said, though she would never have expected any less from Mary-Lou. With her free hand, Daphne picked up the photograph and smiled once more at Mary-Lou’s beaming young face. "Well, why don't you tell me more about him then?"
So, Mary-Lou did.