She doesn’t notice the click of the shutter as I snap her picture
Occasionally, when children pass by, I imagine I see her once again. I recognize the troubled look in her eyes and sensitive lips that seem to be asking, tentatively, if she’s allowed to smile, if there is, in fact, anything to smile about.
But, of course, I know it can’t be my picture child because by now she will be grown with children and perhaps even grandchildren of her own.
Nevertheless, I have time now to contemplate what she has meant to me throughout the years. My mind travels to my own childhood; to my parents, my father, tall, thin and angular, graying, receding hair line, my mother short and even thinner than Daddy with a permanent straight red line for a mouth, one that never turns up or down.
I recall the dank, smothering atmosphere in the house, as if I’m living under water, always feeling the need to escape outside for breathable air lest I suffocate.
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