12.

A few years before you died, you went to the grocery store and printed out four-by-six photos of me, Steph, Caroline, and you. You taped each to the side of our refrigerator. In each picture, we are making the face—baring our teeth, biting down, sparks in our eyes. Steph wears a red sweater from MIT, her face splattered with sun freckles, her chin narrow and pointed. She looks like she is about to laugh. Caroline’s eyes are crinkled. Her hair is cropped short and tinted electric red, which means that she must be in college. In mine, my eyebrows are two faint dashes on my forehead, like yours, and my skin is speckled with preteen pimples, which you and I battled together, applying toothpaste or creams you bought from the drugstore. In your photo, your hair is wiry and fluffed, like you used a blow-dryer that morning, though you rarely bothered with that. Your whole face looks swollen. You look unwell and much older than the forty-four years old that you are in this image. In retrospect, I see that this is cancer.