the expression in Mama’s eyes was complicated. Perhaps, that day when she called me to help her water the fig tree, she sensed a future sadness, as every mother does—but despite the worry, she held me with love and hope and smiled for my father taking the photograph. I recognized the same feeling in myself, for my daughter and son, my brother and Lila, for Sophie, and now Eliza Anne. Looking at my mother’s face, I saw the love I had always wanted. I had always had it, but I had been too distracted by sorrow to see it.
