AND AGAIN, WITHOUT THE HATRED

The woman knew what she was doing when she looked at me from across the table and said, “I couldn’t be a part-time mother.” As if I had a choice.

“You know, a lot of people think she’s pretty. I don’t know. I think she looks hardened for her age.” This, from a balding, junior high photography teacher. My photo, coming to life under chemicals behind plastic darkroom doors.

The ad for two-for-one scampi next to the headline: Bombs Continue to Decimate War-torn Syria. Life is absurd.

The cheese in the eggs. The dog hair embedded in black cashmere.

The backwoods Kentucky gas station with the metal door too heavy to open with my child arms. I panicked. I thought you had left me. I can still trace the ceramic wall tiles in my mind.

The man with the bookshelf filled with self-help books who told me there was no God.

The oak rocker in the room lit by a light in the hall, a mug of hot chocolate in my small hands. Where had you gone?

Broken blood vessels like a roadmap across your cheeks. Your beautiful blue eyes, yellowed. The late-night texts of sad song lyrics. The denial. The last stages of alcoholism. Were we 12 when we shared our first beer?

I stood in between your shotgun and that turtle so you wouldn’t shoot out its insides. I would’ve taken the bullet. Who gave you a gun anyway?

My father’s camera. Unknowingly, I exposed the film — the last photo he took before he died. The unknowing haunts me.

The memories that make up a life look like cells multiplying in a petri dish.