A Cinderella Story

By Najwa Jamal

December 2017. Rhinebeck, New York. A typically dark and brisk evening in the Hudson Valley. The small store fronts and miniature model homes were amply lit up, a warmth emanating from their sidewalk cores. My world was blanketed in white. White lights. White fluffy flecks of fresh snow floated to meet my hair as we walked out of the white barn shaped restaurant of choice. White ricotta covered pizza and long stemmed glasses of pinot grigio later that night. White walls, chairs, sandalwood. White faces, white hands, white words. 

“Happy Birthday sweetheart!” one of those faces had said to the cherub-cheeked blonde guest of honor, Charlotte, earlier that night. Mary, her mother, was a costume designer based in New York City, where I was based too. Her thick-rimmed, tortoiseshell glasses rested low on the bridge of her pert nose; they wiggled when she spoke: “You’re father wanted me to give you this.  All the way from London!”

 She’d made the visit from their family’s inherited West Village brownstone, bearing envelopes of gifts and a two night voucher for a posh inn down the block, which I’d find myself in later after a short walk. The small candle’s flame in front of me quivered in its glass container. The flame flickered, threatened to disappear before me, but settled resolutely. It had a purpose at our table; there was a reason for its existence in this space. I looked up from the flame show to meet Charlotte’s giddy blue eyes, and remembered to flash a smile. All I felt was the chill from the entrance as a party of four fumbled through the doors, seeing themselves out and into their boundless night of frivolous thrills. 

Of all the things that have stayed the same under this roof, there has always been security in the arrival of a new calendar, from a pharmacy, or grocery store, even a mosque. I gazed upward at the glossy calendar currently pinned to the plaster wall. Calendars of all languages and prints have managed a stay here, nestled near the ceiling. The film of time covers this wall as it covers the rest of the two bedroom apartment I’ve called “home,” that I share with three other people I suppose I call “family.”  July, it says. My birthday month. The open window some 10 feet behind me does nothing to cool the Astoria humidity. My father’s bulky, square shaped black fan whirs behind me. The fan teeters on the ledge of the window, remaining pinned into place on the windowpane by nothing but its own will. This is my father’s corner. A worn leather chair almost as old as he is, a tin ashtray, and a woven basket spilling over the rim with months and months and months worth of mail, bills, credit card offers, Costco brochures. The fan’s blades are lined with the dust of 20 years of cigarette fumes and ashes. But they turn, round and round, loudly exhaling as they do. Their exhales fill my earbuds as irritation fills my chest, like a thermometer’s red pipe of mercury rising in a new room. 

I’d flipped through this calendar once before. When it was sprawled on my kitchen table’s plastic tablecloth covered surface, amidst clear bags of green peppers and bushels of cilantro. Short tidbits of wisdom were printed onto each month’s opening page. A fresh start and new beginning! Certainly cause for a healthy recipe here, quirky remark there. I suddenly felt the loose black diamond shaped tile underneath my heel. The tile moved with me as I shifted my weight, and allowed myself to absorb This month’s, my month’s wisdom: “Family first!” The blocked, white letters are pasted atop a photo of an embracing, gleeful family. Two words. Dark hair, tanned skin, glowing smiles. 

Happy

Together, as they should be.

Sunlight from somewhere beyond the frame washes over their interlocked arms and melted together bodies. They’re clad in bright colors of the rainbow, tangerines and turquoises. I squint back up at them, nestled into their narrow home of a page, acutely aware of the sun pounding down my own back. Scoffing, I promptly turn to the fridge, it’s handle held together by spools of clear tape. I tried to listen to the message, closing my eyes to let those eleven letters wash over my body in cool relief. To no avail. I sauntered back into the air conditioning of my living room. No one was home to hear my disbelief, of course. The solitude of my summer afternoon stretched forward. But, the message’s cloud of fog remained inescapable every day onward. 

COURAGE was what the billboard on my way into Gramercy Park read. I did not understand why it was there, and thought perhaps it was one of those highway signs sponsored by some Evangelical group. Bold white letters against a background of graffiti markings. It greeted me through the car window of the cab I sat in for the entirety of the ride, an inescapable obstruction to my vision of the whizzing skyline and summer sun. My parents didn’t know where I was headed; they almost never did, and they never could. 

I rubbed my hands over my crossed arms, the air conditioner secured into the small apartment’s window behind me gusting its wind straight onto my back.

“Are you sure you’re not cold? I can turn it down,” he asked, his extended body already making the motions towards the AC’s control panel. 

The air gently lifted his scent forward. It’s an almost lethal mix of cologne and spliff smoke, tinged at the corners with cleanliness. Tide, I think. No, maybe Gain. Scanning the bachelor pad in front of me, I curled up a bit more, pushing my limbs into themselves, smaller and smaller. No loose tiles, crumbling carpet, or chipped imitation wood. Sleek, modern, white; a converted studio, he’d said when I first walked through the blinding light of his open door. 

“No, no it’s okay! I’m fine, really. I like it actually, considering it’s just so hot out,” I lied, shifting in my seat as goosebumps ravaged my bare shoulders. I opted to chuckle and turn to meet his gaze, now settled next to me on the grey marled couch. 

“Go on.. You mentioned your parents?” I was prepared for this necessary part of the date, though the mist of dread remained, as it always did. Tilting my head sideways and waving my hand to fill the air between us, I encouraged him further. A coy smile stretched across my face, I only thought: do I tell this one? Would he understand?

“Well, it’s crazy actually.. You know they’ve been married for like 30 years or something… and they’ve always been so good about showing us their solidarity.. I’ve never witnessed them argue…” he finished the sentence, the words landing onto the air with pride. My decision was made for me. I raised my eyebrows, nodding and indicating my shock. 

“No way.. That’s just wow, so insane.. I definitely admire that,” I responded, a meditated parting of my lips remaining. I took that moment to scan him once more; white t-shirt; white shorts; white socks. The lights above ricocheted on the rim of his wire glasses, pivoting to the braided gold chain around his neck. Absentmindedly nodding, the manufactured scent of clean linen from an odor-fighting candle on the coffee table near his sleeping dog carried me further away. I felt the space which my body occupied, the air curving around the contours of my frame, and continued to cradle my glass of red wine close to my chest. 

I’d go on to spill red wine on his couch twice that night, profusely apologizing. “I’ll just get it dry cleaned,” he’d said with ease. I realized then that it was approaching 1 AM, and that in four and a half hours, I’d need to be strapping into a black cap and apron and out of my gown and glass slippers for a ten hour shift at a neighborhood bakery. At 6 AM, I’d make my way inside the bakery through the back entrance, the sky a watercolor of blush tones, Ditmars Boulevard untouched. The back entrance stunk of thick heat, pounds of garbage from the day prior, and sweet sugar, so I’d always hold my breath while scuttling inside. “Buenos dias,” I’d call out to whichever of the bakers had arrived first within the kitchen, which was a tight maze of silver carts, trays, boxes, ovens, whisks and banter. The bakers began their work long before the sun began its work in the summer sky. Scooting and shuffling atop the rubber mats that lined the floor, I would push forward the 11 foot tray that was stacked top to bottom with pans of freshly baked muffins and croissants, waiting for my morning regulars. Once in the front of the store, I’d turn on the display case lights and begin my puttering. Chocolate chip and double chocolate muffins in one tray, sugar-free cranberry and blueberry in another. This would go on in one capacity or another all day, with my coworkers, managers and barista joining in. Smiling at the old, and doling out free sugar cookies for the young, I’d watch numbers all day: tips, totals, checks, hours. He continued to detail his this and his that. I continued to ooh and ahh, playing along, as I knew I should.

In one month’s time, and many a text, red wine, and dates later, I was rushing down a grey Brooklyn sidewalk to an apartment not yet open to the public. A new condominium. I cursed myself for choosing to wear platform sandals, as their unstable soles pounded on the pavement in my effort to make it on time. 

“Come! I’m here now and I really want you to see it… I think it’s everything I was looking for…just come over...” he’d said on his phone from inside his Jeep. I imagined the car’s carefree carousing, borough to borough, showing to showing. And that’s how I found myself inside of a $3,000 a month, one-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg, amounting to more space than I thought appropriate for a single man to need, and costing more than double the amount my father scribbled out monthly on his thinning and only checkbook. We stood by the doorway, his hand clasping mine, our fingers interlaced. To anyone, we’d look like a happy couple. Yet, I hoped my palm wasn’t clamming up the way the rest of me was, my threadbare jeans clinging uncomfortably to my thighs. 

The Rolex on his wrist grazed my own, which was amply decorated by three thin chains, sending a stifled shiver up my arm. His watch was a college graduation gift from his father, amongst other things. I tried to remember my parent’s reaction to my own highschool graduation, seeing as I was the first in my family to graduate with a highschool degree. Nothing came to mind.

 “So, what do you think?” his grinning face asked. The broker hovered near, watching us while balancing on one foot. She had just shown me around, pointing to the floor to ceiling window with an obscene view of the skyline, in what would become his living room, soon to hold both of us on lazy afternoons. The newly installed wooden flooring would prove slippery for his dog’s paws, as they’d gently pitter patter to their dry food. The single bedroom, with another bright window, awaited the soft tumble of his white down comforter and hum of his shiny devices. 

“I think it really is everything you wanted, even the in-unit washer and dryer,” I teased,  recalling I’d been quite appalled by his refusal to settle for anything but an apartment with a washer dryer included. A smile remained plastered to my face, though calculation after calculation inundated my mind, and I continued swallowing hard against the bile climbing the back of my throat. I watched him sign the contract, even giving him a little clap when our eyes met from the distanced corner I stood in, empty grandness of the space closing in on me. He agreed to a $10,000 upfront payment and security deposit, just as I’d agreed to shoulder $10,000 of debt annually for four years of college. Just like that. We walked out into the endless hallway, its floor lights twinkling, taunting. In between his giddy kisses I tried to shake away the weight of my world, my disjointed existence. He insisted we celebrate. And so we did. 

Lattes, brunch, oat milk;

Tajine, faire la sieste, couscous. 

Exotic, beautiful, interesting; 

Immigrant, terrorist, challenging.

Jesus, Easter, Christmas;

Mohammed, Ramadan, Eid.

Boyfriends and beer;

Honor roll and mint tea.

 Mommy and Daddy! Birthday balloons! Anniversaries; 

Lies, lies, lies.

Carolina, Georgia, Dakota;

Najwa, Najwa, Najwa.

The word for egg in darija is the same word for the color white. Dry air was the first thing to slap my face seven years ago as I exited Mohammed V. International Airport’s stuck doors. The doors don’t glide open as much as they skid to a halt. Ten hours ago, I was entering John F. Kennedy International airport, and the automatic doors never once missed their cue. Blinking and squinting into the sun, my eyes didn’t adjust to the new land around me. Moroccan land, my land. Stripped and browning palm trees lined the parking lot. I was dizzied by the magnitude of the light, the heat, the sand. My aunts were chattering behind me, helping to lug forward my family’s eight suitcase caravan. I knew what lay in those bags: whole sized plastic jars of Skippy’s, tubes of Revlon lipstick and mascara, Bath and Body Works lotions and perfumes. The fruits of my country. 

“The Americans have finally arrived, all the way from New York… look, Najwa, you’re like an egg,” my mother’s sister teased in Arabic, pinching my cheek, which had already caught red, rejecting the air around me. Being an egg was a good thing, I’d come to understand. In the coming weeks I’d watch my aunts slather their sun kissed faces in thick layers of made in America sunscreen. It’s gloop never fully absorbed, instead lingering as a proud shadow of whiteness on their skin. On the roof of the family beach house, my darker skinned cousins’ Parisian clothing would come flying off and form small piles alongside me and my brother’s similarly foreign articles of denim shorts and cotton tank tops. In between the spraying of their tanning oils and the tightening of their bikini tops, they’d come to call me an egg, and once more, I’d learn that was a good thing.

My sweater was still on, a GAP logo knitted across its fully zipped front. The airplane was cold; JFK was cold too. Women floated around me in full length Moroccan garb, which I’d only seen on my mother on holidays. Long dresses in the colors of terracotta and brick, little hoods perched on their frequently scarf covered heads, hands cradling their daughters’ palm. I gazed at the young girls, their eyes large and brown, frizzy hair barely secured by neon colored, plastic clips, probably placed there by their mamas.  My mouth was as parched as the dust that billowed around our busy treads, handmade leather mules stepping alongside department store sandals. “I’m thirsty. Does anyone have any water?” I croaked out to the gaggle of conversation my body is in the center of. I struggled to string together the sentence in darija, biting down on an English tongue not yet molded to the time I’d be spending in Casablanca. A tanned hand passed me a bottle from somewhere. Unscrewing the light blue cap, I brought the bottle to my lips, and felt disappointment before the stream of warm, odd tasting liquid fully filled my mouth. There was nothing I wanted more than a cup of tap water. Safe tap water from home. I’m loaded into a car, the chatter’s buzz at an all time high, screeches and laughs pushing against the low roof of the vehicle. I leaned my forehead against the glass, in hopes of cool comfort. My head reeled back from the scorching surface instead, my breaths swallowing more and more heat. Shoving myself further down into the black fabric of the seat, I pulled up my hood, and let my eyes droop. The seat was equally as inflamed with sun. Drifting, floating, succumbing. Defeated by this blanket of heat, my eyes drooped into slumber, and I only wondered if the developing pit in my stomach was excitement or regret. 

July 2016. Astoria, New York: The hair salon’s invisible fumes stung my eyes, which were still recovering from the folded foils of clumpy bleach that had been searing my scalp an hour and a half earlier. Segments of my hair peppered the ground beneath me. I was a blonde now, from root to tip. 

Rani, my Moroccan hairdresser, continued smoothing out pieces of my freshly blow dried hair, fluffing and framing the translucent strands around my chubby sixteen year old face. My normally coiled curls laid flat, straightened to a crisp. Some girls had the right kind of faces. The kinds of faces that belonged to Lily’s and Rose’s who got their way. At school, these Lily’s and Rose’s had manes which were always sleek, shiny and wispy. After their morning showers, it would dry perfectly atop their shoulders and graze their backs through the first period. I’d always had to wash mine the night before, wrapping it up in a scarf before I slept for fear of frizz. Come sixth period, they’d throw it up in a feathered ponytail, their lustrous strands the color of honey in the light, forming a perfect halo around their lauded, symmetrical faces. I felt no clicking together of puzzle pieces into completion, as I’d hoped for. His soothing and encouraging remarks were an indiscernible buzzing around my ears, like that of a fly. He mentioned I will need to make appointments every 6 weeks to erase traces of my original growth. I’d have to start using purple shampoo, deep conditioner, and stay out of swimming pools. The rules and regulations continued to grow, as a tightness continued to creep higher and higher into my throat, a silent force threatening to overcome me. I looked forward at the full length mirror in front of me. I couldn’t recall at all the impulse, the urge, the call that charmed me in the first place, that made me grab the puzzle box off the shelf. Had I passed?

Manhattan, New York. Presbyterian Hospital. Maternity Ward. 

Astoria, New York. 43rd street. Apartment C.

Rabat, Morocco. Diour Jamaa. 

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. College.

nothing fits me anymore. 

Summer 2020. Astoria, New York. Somewhere in-between June and August. I sit on my stoops, letting the afternoon melt before me, lingering under the sun. These stoops have held me many a moment in my life, and cradled me from the chaos three stories above. They’ve watched me stumble off of Razor scooters on summer evenings past, and stumble into cabs for an array of secret rendezvous. The trees lining the block in front of me are lush; leaves full and bright green, fully grown into their frames, ready for greatness. They are at their peak. They too have watched me. Neighbors come and go, filtering through the waves of sunlight that bathe the otherwise mundane brick and asphalt street in comfort. The wall I am leaned against, the tree to my right-- these are home, I attempt to remind myself. 

But where I sit is really a spider’s web, a sticky, large, invisible trap for the flies who can’t see it. The fly will try to get away, but finds itself stuck in the mess of the web’s threads: threads of obligation, threads of bloodline, threads of pity. I brace myself before getting up, but hesitate, feeling as though when I do, I will be comically large. Like Godzilla, my feet would snap these trees in half, the sway of my arm bringing down the entirety of my apartment building and the stoops, its foundation obliterated. Cars crushed as I’d move forward, move away from this building, its four walls; my family, its members, its clutter and cacophony. 

***

You were fucking fat!

Just so beautiful.

S, 26, 2;

XL, 31, 10.

Wine, joints, cocktails and miniskirts;

Don’t tell mama and baba.

Oh, I’m not that religious;

Quran filled Saturday school.

American, “white,” Najwa;

Arab, other, Najwa.

New Year’s Day. Gusts of wind caressed the snow falling from the sky. I watched as the flakes collected on barren tree branches and atop abandoned building roofs like grey ashes from a fire long burned out. At 7:58 am, this world was grey. Three hours ago it was 9:54 pm and I sat in the sky. Nine hours ago, I was hugging my parents and younger brother goodbye at the terminal, eyes blurred as I waved back at them from my position on the security line for as long as I could. I recalled how my mother, even my brother, got on their knees with me on the hard floor of the airport. I’d had to unzip my luggage and pick apart what could stay and what could go. Their arms were full with pieces of my existence that would have been cause for a fine. Yet, they stood and waved to the end. Until the slate colored screen doors fully took over my vision and funneled me onto the other side, I did not allow for the dampness hovering along my lower lashes and cheeks to overcome me.

The words or sentences on the billboards that peeled at the edges were just letters strung together. I tried whispering these words aloud under my breath, but nothing slipped out of my contorted lips. Even in the closed and heated car, I felt a chill absorb through my sweatshirt and jacket. As the highway unrolled ahead of me, I wondered about my parents having driven back from JFK with one less member of the flock, as they often have. I’m not sure how long the cab ride really was, despite my floating through conversation with the English speaking driver about my flight-- yes, I’m originally from New York, oh and yes, I’ll be here for the next six months. Through the grey cloud that hung over the city, flecks of color began to emerge: creams and sages of the utilitarian high rise housing, reds and browns of the brick shops, yellows and blues of the trams and buses. Once on my new block, the driver kindly unloaded my luggage and wished me well. I was left to stare, dwarfed and shivering, as ghostly faces passed me by on the sidewalk, light, beady eyes squinted in glares of difference. Features sharp, pointy, pale; they’d already marked me away. At the rusted terracotta gate of my apartment’s building, I stood alongside what I’d brought along in migration: two suitcases and a backpack. 

I realized I’d finally done it: gotten away from the world of inexplicable cramped chaos I call my life, in a capacity that flung me across an ocean and into a two floor apartment with a a washing machine inside the building and not on the opposite corner of my block, with a balcony overlooking rooftops that tickled the misty Budapest skyline. I could buy a bottle of red wine wherever and whenever I wanted, no need to hide bleary eyes or trek to another borough for a glass. Clubs and bars lingered a district away, only waiting for my batted lashes and heeled boots. Weekly trips to the flower shop around the corner resulted in bushels of bloom on desks on windowsills in this space that was my own. Flowers wilted wherever they were placed on bedside and kitchen tables in Astoria. I’d come to embark on late night metro station switches to be held in the arms of another while we pondered odd Pringles flavors or Coca Cola Haribo gummies in the fluorescent Lidol aisle, my hand folded into his wider one, both placed in his jacket pocket when it got too cold on our wandering walks of city districts and tourist markets. My eyes would meet his own as I’d look up from my work and dried espresso stained mug at the cafe we’d settled into, only to realize he’d been already staring. 

I’d always promised myself I would get away, a bond from mind to body that it would happen. This promise has forever been my compass. And this promise was the only option left at my disposal. As my compass guided me to Eastern Europe, I was thrilled at the chance to leap further away: away from my circumstances. Two train stops north from where I lived were the sparkling Danube River and towering Hungarian Parliament Building, both so grand and steeped in time that I couldn’t comprehend why, as I walked atop the cobblestone by the River on frigid February afternoons, I’d only wanted to show my mother and father; why that as I would come to cross the bridge that connected Pest to Buda, I would partially hope for an outline of the Manhattan skyline on the other side. I couldn’t understand the unraveling spool of ache that filled me on the elevator ride up to the fourth floor of the building, that continued to set itself loose inside me as I turned the key into the door knob lock and was greeted by four new walls, empty save for the dust of a new city. 

From my position on my knees in front of my suitcase, I began to unload pieces of myself into the largest room. The first room I’ve ever had to myself. The apartment was hollow, and even with a tram, train, and three bus stops only three floors below, the silence of the space screamed into my ears. I plugged myself into sound, anything to distract from the blaring quiet. Between rolled up socks and sweaters, I stumbled upon a singular, neatly folded white pillowcase, remembering it was the one thing my mother refused to take from me in the airport, even as I insisted it’d be easier to buy a new one when I arrived. Bringing the pillow case to my face, I burrowed my nose into the cotton and deeply inhaled, a tingling rush of heat shooting itself to my throat. Behind closed eyes, the scent danced across my lids, a blend of the soap my mother reserved for delicates, with a dash of her pesters, and a sprinkle of her voice calling me hbiba, sweetheart. I wished in that moment that I’d agreed to take with me the satchel of french vanilla coffee my father purchased in a last minute haze the afternoon of my departure. I told him he was crazy, that it weighed too much, that they have coffee over there too. He knew it was my favorite. The unpacking continued into the evening, though my body had yet to realize it was not in Astoria. I had only enough drive left to tuck myself into bed after a lukewarm shower. With my head nestled onto my pillow, and dusk providing the shadow I needed, I inhaled the sheet once more, eyes growing damp. In all the ways I despise my mother and father, I finally began to accept they’ll always be the hardest to leave behind. 

Sometime in 1991. My mother. The princess and baby of the family, fairest of her five 

sisters. She was shipped away at 24 to the land of glory, stripes and stars, not much older than I am today. My father. Her “prince.” His mother’s undeclared favorite. He thought my mother was the most beautiful woman the Moroccan land underneath him had to offer. They eloped in two weeks time, but remained enmeshed like razor wire to a metal prison fence for more than twenty years. In two decades time, they’ve continued placing band aids on the infected, festering limb that’s required amputation. Their blaze destroyed everything it touched; their bullets shattered dinner plates and tender hearts. Skin remains seared as thoughts are brandished. I’m not sure when their anniversary is, just as I’m not sure of most details surrounding their union. My mother’s name means gentle; my father’s, merciful. In their gentle mercy, they’ve never understood what they’d done. One apartment. Two children, a boy and a girl. I was the light at the end of the tunnel of my mother’s blossoming miscarriages (three to be exact). My brother was an accident, sorry, a blessing. To this day, I remain the light at the end of my mother’s tunnel. 

Najwa, the glue to the incongruous puzzle pieces of her world. 

Tears and sweat and everything in between. Could they have known? When I sift through the thick envelopes of unearthed disposable camera photographs, this is often the only question I am left with. I’ve come to hoard wads of these photos, tucking their plush sheets into the cracks of my favorite notebooks as sacred momentos of what was. 

My mother’s thick curly hair subtly streaked with light blonde highlights, and blow dried into an array of royal updos, pulled up and back to reveal the oval shaped face, large brown eyes and high cheekbones I see when I look at my reflection today. My father was thinner then, his hair darker, hazel eyes ablaze with nefarious youth. He has three birthmarks across his nose and cheek, the most prominent one balancing on the bridge of his nose. These are the same birthmarks that are scattered on my nose and left cheek today. I’d always hated my nose growing up, especially because it was his nose. My mother wore an emerald green dress laced with lines of sparkling yellow tinsel, pink embroidered flowers and white leaves weaved in between the threads of gold. Heavy diamond earrings dangling from young earlobes; a gold crown nestled atop her head; a braided rope necklace hangs low on her chest, almost meeting the sparkling belt on her waist, and the bundles of bangles on her thin wrists. Her sister sits next to her on the couch, clad in a dazzlingly deep blue dress with thick panels of metallic gold lacing around the collar and sleeve cuffs. Her nails are painted in bright red varnish (my favorite), and she twiddles her fingers in her lap, offering a shy smile to the camera. Everyone and everything is draped and drizzled in gold, a Moroccan trademark, shiny and sparkling. Even the tassels on the couch twinkle in shades of silver and red. My mother’s hands were being decorated with swirls of henna by someone outside the frame; they rested delicately on her lap. 

Nestled into the center of a white and blue sidari, my father was grinning, feeding my mother a date stuffed with a filling of ground almond and rose water, as she candidly smirked into the camera, hand raised, and under her chin, to cradle any falling crumbs. They almost look like the vision of love: young boy from the city meets young girl from the country. Her pastel yellow, silk frock catches the light, golden bangles creeping through her falling sleeve, which is threaded along the edges with bright blue. Baby bird blue is the color of my father’s button down shirt. It’s almost the same color as the knitted flowers on the front of my mother’s dress. The red paisley tie is tucked securely underneath my father’s collar. This is the only time I’ve seen him wear a tie. To the right of my mother’s sits her older sister, laughing. Interwoven hands wearing gold rings, bracelets, bangles and watches, and mouths wide open from deep belly laughter form a halo around the new couple. Flowers and lacing, tafta and silk, doilies and satin. This is the photo I chose to keep perched on my desk, somewhere I can see. The other, I keep clipped to my mirror. I bring both with me, wherever I find myself, as proof, that once upon a time, there could have been something there. 

*