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The Line Continued
Maybe she’s wearing one of the striped sweaters that still share closet space with our linens—sweaters tight enough to reveal the curves of her breasts, swollen from nursing, sweaters that have been hidden behind spare flannel sheets for almost two decades now. Wait, scratch that—it was August. In August she would have been wearing a sundress, one of the ones I would eventually begin to borrow around seventeen, when my vintage phase began. The fabric was allotted generously at the bottom, so that the skirt swirled with each step. The top bore a tighter, lower cut; for my fair skin, this would later mean handfuls of sunscreen, but for her, having grown up in Florida, the plunging neckline revealed permanently tanned décolletage.
I'll put her in heels, the ones I discovered in her closet years later and tapped danced around the house in. I'll put her in lipstick because for me, before that time, she will always be glowing. Forget that the first year of motherhood wears down all women, especially those like her who quickly return to work. The woman I see in Polaroids, in fuzzy home videos, is lit from within. I forget her hippie roots, forget that she had never opened a copy of Vogue, forget that her outfits in those old movies are always functional, not fashionable. In the summer of '85 she was glamorous, if only because there needs to be something she will lose. If only because we all must change during the course of this story.
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