by Lindsay Martell
The dress I loved was a hand-me-down from someone I can’t remember. It had ribbon ties at the shoulders, and blocks of pink, yellow and blue. My hair peeked below my earlobes like the splayed out ends of a broom. My brothers, Matt and Brad, lean forward, ready to spring up and away from the forced smiles and stillness. Their faces are mostly in the sun, revealing a kind of burnished Harvey Dent two-face silhouette on Brad, matching his mischievousness. On Matt, the oldest, and always the most serene, the light is muted, as if the sun is diffused by a dirty window. Mom and grandma sit on folding chairs, their legs tanned and poised at a slight angle. They look more like sisters, with the same soft shoulders and hands. Doctor Bob, my stepdad, kneels behind them, their protector, always, against the loudness of us.
Our family posed for someone that day and Jamie, our neighbor, jumped beside me, seconds before the photo was taken. She spent the summer with her dad in the yellow house across the street. A year older than me, Jamie was the sometimes sister I never had. We swung from branches of fights and loud laughter—our hands threaded together as we boomeranged between our homes.
Mom used to say it would have been the perfect family photo if it had just been us, if Jamie wasn’t there. But I liked her next to me, wearing matching smiles; forced, upside down sliver moons. Our little bodies twitched to get back to the swing set, the spiders, and hot pavement beneath our feet.
We were beautiful in the way that families are just once.
Lindsay Martell is a journalist and fiction writer living in Huntersville, North Carolina. She is a columnist for Cornelius Today, and routinely writes for Dance Media publications. Her poetry has been published by The North Carolina Poetry Society’s “Poetry in Plain Sight” initiative. She completed her MFA at Lindenwood University and is working on a YA novel in verse.
Photo by Siobhan Flannery on Unsplash
