close up, in miniature, his arm looped around her as they ran in synch, and he kissed her, lingering there, though it must have been difficult, coordinating feet, arm, mouth. Did I admire their grace, the duet of effort? Was it a beautiful image, the light just right on her buttery hair? Is that why my finger clicked again just before he pulled away? Why, I can’t precisely say.
We stayed where we were. The Plexiglas enclosure of the bus shelter was cracked on both sides. It reminded me of cups that had gone through the dishwasher, and survived, intact, but not the same.
“Did he just kiss my mom?” Ellie looked at me with a deep furrow in her brow, a portent of her older, angrier self.
Here it was, I thought. The rightness I sought, my hunch realized, and I didn’t want it anymore, wanted only what we had before. I still tasted butter and syrup at the edges of my mouth, the smeared napkin, diner coffee, the cheap sweetness I longed to have last.
“Just a good-bye kiss. Lots of grown-ups do that,” I replied. I wasn’t lying to her. I was stating a fact.
“They weren’t on a doorstep,” she said quietly. “Or near a car.”
“The path splits,” I said. “He probably lives off to the left.” I lifted my hand, fluttering it in that direction. Tinsley’s house was straight ahead, not far, perhaps half a mile. They were out of sight now, over the last small rise, and could be anywhere. Together, or not.
We walked back slowly and didn’t talk much. The camera hung around my neck like a heavy stone, pulling. We stopped at a pond next to the local McDonald’s, where some toddlers were feeding French fries to the geese, straight out of their hands, squealing at the threat of being nipped.
“Fries probably aren’t good for geese,” Ellie said quietly, throwing a pebble into the water.
“Nonsense,” I replied. “Birds eat all kinds of things. In New York City, the pigeons prefer hot dogs to birdseed.”
On another day, there would have been questions, perhaps. What did birds eat in Philadelphia? Do geese eat differently from pigeons? But not today. We had only a few blocks left to walk, and I felt bad that I couldn’t carry her. It was as if she’d known she might need a piggyback ride.
The block where she lived was quiet. The houses were close enough that you could hear a door slam or a vase break, but there was nothing to listen to. Outside her front door, Ellie thanked me, as if she didn’t expect me to come inside. But I opened the door and followed her in. In the back of the house, Tinsley stood at the small kitchen island, looking through the mail, her face flushed, her hair caught up in a bun. The golden pieces in front looked wavy now, dull and damp from all her effort.
She didn’t hear us.
Ellie took her markers up to her room and I cleared my throat.
Tinsley looked up with a start; I forced a smile.
“She’s just run upstairs,” I said. “We had a fine time.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks so much, Ann,” she said, her wrists poised above the mail as one might be above a meal, anxious to get back to it.
When I got home I forced myself to look at the pictures. There was less in them than I remembered, no telling smile of contentment or blush of shame. What struck me most was the shape of his hand on her cheek, the stoutness of his thick fingers, the width of his palm’s shadow, so different from my own son’s delicate hands.
August 2, 1967
3:00 PM
sponge bath
MY BREAST IS GONE, BUT sometimes I still feel it. When the left one fizzes with milk, I feel the right one, too. When I take off my bra, an imagined weight pulls on both sides. Then I look down, and I know. Betsy and I had a laugh over this—that now I really never could burn my bra even if I wanted to.
This morning I stood in front of the open bathroom window, letting my hair dry in the breeze. I felt it curl up only at the ends; it would never be stick straight like Faye Dunaway’s or Jane Fonda’s, just as it would never be wavy like Grace Kelly’s. I will never be in style, but that is probably the least of my worries. When I lifted my arms, the breeze gathered force across the bandages on