<3 parents.

Carol Krywalski and James Latchford were married in Paul’s backyard pre-swimming pool, before the click and whir of the large pool filter in the garage, before the pool’s cement would rub the bottoms of my toes raw and painful, just to the point of bleeding, or snag the shiny spandex of my suit bottoms when I sat down to just put my feet in, when I would swipe my fingers across the deck to smear those tiny speck bugs we called Bloodsuckers; before the shellacked but slivery pool deck was the site of card games and boxes of wine. It was 1980; I know so from the Gold Circle Photo stamp on the back of the small photo. This sepia world faded the green of the plastic porch furniture strewn about the yard; it shaded everyone’s limbs a crisp brown that seems impossible for an Irish guy and a Polish girl in July. Sepia has since absorbed like iodine into their bodies and bloodstreams, a poison that surfaced as wrinkles for Mom, and skin cancer for Dad. But here, they are languid and lazy, wispy-haired and as soft as linen, their mouths formed mid-sentence O’s; this whole place is a whisper from their ring-mouths, the smoke from their July cigarettes.