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I catch Mama’s eye, offering her silent support without alienating my sister.
We learned the steps of this dance years ago, my mother and I tiptoeing around Marin’s words. It was an unspoken agreement we made
The past, no matter how definite, does not have the power to determine the future.
that memory among millions of others. “But it is not our place to judge.” It was the wrong thing to say. Ranee knew it before the sentence was complete.
Ranee always heard that the power of the word was stronger than anything. She wants to ask the person who said that if he or she had ever felt the power of the hand.
Like the words from a writer, each photo is its own being, with its own life. I am simply the conduit, the one chosen to take the picture. If not me, then another will pass by and honor the request. It is my fortune to be a part of it, to preserve it.
“See that tree. The one in the middle, among the larger ones?” As we stand side by side, our arms touch. “It’s the smallest one.” The Stanford hospital is set among acres of trees. “The others are blowing in the wind, but the smaller one is protected. It’s standing perfectly still, a haven for all the animals whose homes on the larger trees may be destroyed by nature’s hand.” “But it doesn’t see itself that way,” David says. “No,” I say, surprised he follows my thoughts. “It believes itself weak because it is smaller. Less powerful. Maybe nature doesn’t trust it to stand up against its wrath
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Five years in age separates them, but a generation of confusion divides them.
says bitingly, taking the bait Ranee subconsciously threw out.
That because you had to stand silent in our new world . . .” She pauses, a sob building. “I convinced myself that in our home you had the right to be strong.”
I had one Barbie and one Ken doll growing up; they were my prized possessions. It mattered little to me that she had blond hair and blue eyes, but Marin thought they looked strange. Her dolls from India, cut from wood, had brown bodies. Their hair, black from dye, was braided down their backs. I cared little for her dolls. Though they were a reflection of us, I was secure in the knowledge that mine were truly beautiful.
It’s impossible to give someone the world. You can show them glimpses of yours, hope they join you in it, but to give them the world means you have to be willing to give up your own. Nonetheless,
I want to ask him to stop trying to save the man who created this. The one who left a trail of broken wings in his wake. To
with weakness comes great power.
Ranee watches her three daughters carefully, seeing them for the women they are, and also the women they could be. She imagines a trapeze artist walking a tightrope across a large gulf, desperate to reach the other side but unsure if she’ll survive to make it.
life. When something or someone demands you be more than you have been, when you must put aside your own needs and what is best for you to fight for another, no matter the cost. The past, the day-to-day living becomes irrelevant. All that matters is that instant when the ticking of the clock is louder than an ocean’s wave hitting the rocks, when time does not stand still, but slows, every second longer than the last one. This is when the decision becomes the only thing you can hear and see. When the choice falls out of your hand and fate intervenes. When your life is no longer yours but
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Marin assured her friends that day that even if she were a man before, she would never be a man again, not in any future lives. When they demanded to know why, she answered with all the confidence born from not knowing, “Because that’s the easy way out. I
“Beti,” Mama says, her eyes meeting mine. “What he did to you can never be undone. But don’t let it color your life. Don’t let his actions or his way of living become your truth.” She gets out of the bed and cradles my face in her hands. “You are your truth. You have always been and will always be your own woman.
