(this is annie)

In the late afternoon, after we have worked and eaten and napped, my mother and I walk toward the dusty gravel road that leads to and from our house. Max, the dirt-nosed kitten, romps happily behind us, alertly enjoying her first summer. We watch her long, lanky body twist and stretch, and when she pounces at bugs, we laugh at her newness. Max follows us to the property line, and then she watches us disappear.

As we walk, the gravel crunches below us. My mother's breathing is louder than mine, hers a soft rasp developed from smoking thousands of cigarettes over the years. I wonder if I've walked this road a thousand times. We turn right at the hill, look carefully for speeding pickup trucks as we cross the black-top pavement, and walk to the lake.

Three skinny-legged little girls are splashing merrily in the water. They are all wearing modest bikinis, and I remember living that perfect phase of girldom, when I hadn't yet learned to curse the existence or lack of curves. My mother sits on a large rock, and I sit across from her on a squatter one. The rocks are warm from the midday sun that beats down on us, and the effect is one of being heated from the earth and sky. As though I'm drawing all the warmth of the world.

Labels: betty