sit – our porch swing – and fluff the indoor/outdoor paisley fabric of the cushions before I leave. It’s not a long walk to where Prue and Dad have their vender’s cart set up, but I swing by the coffee shop on my way and get an iced tea from Micki, the manager. By the time I reach the food cart, I am ravenous and could eat whatever Prue slaps on a paper plate for me. It’s melt in your mouth meat with salted potatoes and cabbage. I do so love the Irish.
Prue is tall and very tan and leathered looking in complexion. She does have the sort of face that a camera would love to capture, simply because she is unusual and seems out of place wherever she is. Which, of course, like the rest of us, she is. She has long salt and pepper colored hair that she wears in braids that are then twisted around her head several times, and she is large and rather intimidating looking. Her skin is the color of mocha and her ethnicity is always a debatable question. Prue isn’t my grandmother by blood but she has traveled with my dad and me for as long as I’ve been alive, and before that. She’s been with Dad since he was a teenager and lost his own parents. She speaks several languages but mostly lapses into a mixture of French and Native American. She makes sure to swear in English so that everyone can understand it though. She’s accommodating like that.
My father is tall and dark, like I am, but his eyes are brown. He looks like he should be a college professor of something literary, and he is in fact a bit of a history buff. Well, I suppose we all are since we experience more of it than the normal person who stays put in one century. He has that air of musty books and reading glasses and bowties about him, as if you could find him on a library shelf and not be surprised. He is aimless and sad much of the time and our whole group tends to baby him. Everyone wants to see him smile, laugh, forget. He rarely does. He is not a man of rainbows and sunbeams, my father.
I sit on the concrete wall behind the food cart and swing my legs as I eat my lunch. I butter up Prue as much as possible, telling her how wonderful her cooking is and how nice she looks today, but judging by the scowl and the way she smacks my knee with a fork I’m guessing she isn’t buying what I’m selling. So I abandon the compliments, take the fork away from her, and tell her about Luke Dawes, Photographer.
“And he didn’t say, Prue, but I bet you he probably pays for his models,” I finish, taking a sip of tea through my straw and trying to sound casual. Prue is extremely fond of spending money.
She grunts and stirs her pot of cabbage. She removes a bay leaf and flicks it in my direction. Getting Prue out of customer service would probably be an excellent idea. I remove the leaf from my jeans.
“He takes nice pictures. Just think about it. I saw some of his photos and he’s talented. There was a girl who looked like Rose.” I shouldn’t say it but I do. We don’t speak of my sister much. If it’s possible, my dad looks even more sad and lost and I immediately regret my impulsive carelessness.
Prue on the other hand, softens her gaze and puts the lid back on her pot. “Baby Rose. God bless her. I hope she had a long, happy life. Wish we could have gone back and seen what happened to her. I ‘spect she had a real good life, that little one. I’m sure old Babba found her real quick.”
I’m sure Old Babba found her real quick. One of us says that each and every time we remember Rose out loud. It’s like the words are our mantra, our chant, to ward off thinking about it any longer. Old Babba was our neighbor there, an old woman who came by the house we were living in nearly every day. We talk ourselves into believing that Old Babba would have found Rose the next morning after we had traveled on without her. The worry of what may have happened, what could have happened, is too much to bear. So we comfort