When my mother is no longer here, I know I will cling to that lovely fragrance of mint and a moisturizer I’ll always associate with beauty and love. I will cling to those summer nights we raced—and yet didn’t race—home. I will try to bang myself back to that Oldsmobile like the lacewings that argue nightly with my porch light bulb, to what my small family was then, not even big enough to call a swarm: one sister, two parents.
