excerpt from Her Thin Summer Top

I must have said these things, but it was thirty years ago, and I don’t remember the dialogue. I only know what would have been said, because I know that part. I know what would have been said.

But I remember the mom, so very young and sitting so still—her long straight silvery hair, her thin summer top, her bare arms on either side of the boy, watching me talk but too tired to respond, too tired to cry. The two of them, a young mother and a baby boy, facing me, watching me talk, watching me talk. Wondering what I was saying.