My Mother Recognized My Fake Fiance From an Autumn Night Five Years Ago
Even then, her eyes had that cool, assessing look, the expression she used when she was evaluating the quality of a neighbor’s lawn or the trim on a porch.
My father was barely in the frame, his shoulder a dark blur at the edge of the paper, his attention fixed on something beyond the garden gate.
I reached into the corner of the plastic sleeve and slid the photograph out, the old paper stiff and dry against my fingertips.
The back of the print was blank except for a faded pencil mark that read July, written in my mother’s neat, slanted hand.
I laid the picture face down on the bottom of the box and reached for the next album, a heavy green ledger with brass corners.
This one held the older records, the black-and-white portraits of relatives I had only met once or twice at holiday dinners in the colonial home.
There was my grandmother, her jaw set in the same hard line my mother used when she spoke to the delivery drivers or the postman.
