Dear Kurl,
Did you know that you have a freckle under your left ear, about an inch below and a quarter inch behind your earlobe? Today at lunch, when you stopped by the art room to hang out with me and the girls, I noticed this freckle for the first time.
Bron had called us over to the window to see how beautiful the rain looked bouncing off the flat roof outside.
“That’s a bad seal on that skylight,” you pointed out. “That’ll be leaking in a couple months.” And Bron teased you for focusing on practical rather than aesthetic concerns despite standing in the art classroom.
I was standing next to you, noticing how the light from the window cast raindrop-shadows across your cheekbone. The freckle under your left ear surprised me: How could I never have noticed it before? I’d always believed your skin was uniformly pale. Were there more freckles I didn’t know about? Was there a matching freckle, for example, under your other ear?
The three of you discussed that photo in the hallway by the restrooms at Rosa’s Room, the one of Raphael and Lyle onstage together. You told us you’d thought it was a picture of Shayna at first, and that you’d had to look twice.
Shayna said, “Seriously, if it wasn’t for that one picture, I don’t think I’d remember I ever had a mother. I’d believe Lyle found us in a forest or something.”
Meanwhile, I’d snuck around to your other side to see if I could find more freckles. My sister was in the way, so I squeezed in and hip-nudged her off balance, pretending I wanted the view from her side of the window.
“Screw off, you little worm,” she said, and dug her knuckles into my ribs, whereupon the whole scene degenerated into a sibling tussle upon which you and Bron looked with detached amusement.
Yours,
Jo
PS: I must have been about six months old when that photo was snapped at Rosa’s. My mother is decked out in full grunge-maiden regalia: long floral dress, motorcycle boots, a choker with some kind of polished stone or shell, lots of rings on her fingers. I’ve got that photo committed to memory, Kurl. Lyle is playing the banjo, but he has sidled up beside her and leaned way over and is resting his temple against her shoulder. He’s smiling wide, and her head is thrown back in the biggest, happiest laugh.…
I always wanted to know what song they’re singing in the photo, but Lyle was never sure. “It was all pretty much a green haze,” he would say. How I hated that! I have no memories of Raphael, so I can’t help but feel that Lyle needs to be responsible for all the memories. How could he have been that happy in the photo and not recall every single detail about the moment it was taken?