This is our final season here, the family whole and smelling of smoke, and each of us holds this unspoken knowledge close, as if it s our own sad secret. Taylor knew the moment her brother s wet fingers clawed her shoulder. Logan knew when his axe struck a rotting spruce. I give up on the camera, lean over your shoulder. Hour upon liquid hour, more paint.
Trees melt beneath the mercurial sky, reemerge as bodies walking away.
During the peace of another motherless Sunday afternoon, she s sifting through treasures in a basement trunk. Shirley s wedding dress lies crumpled in the bottom drawer. Natasha tries it on over her clothes and checks herself in the basement bathroom mirror. The dress has turned a sickly shade of yellow. She digs through piles of loose photographs, then stumbles onto several boxes of slides.