I have been sorting through old photographs and scanning them into the computer. This picture of my mother and my brother and me was taken soon after we moved from Philadelphia to Florida.
For some reason, I keep coming back to it. I stare at my saddle shoes and my red tights. I study my mother’s hands and my brother’s face. I don’t know what it is that I expect this photograph to tell me, what secrets I think it contains, but I can’t stop looking.
My mother, then, was the same age that I am now.
She was alone in a strange place with two young children. She must have been terrified. But, look, she has put a hand over each of us. She is pulling us toward her. She is smiling.

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