Before September

Blue eyeliner, rain-bled.

Mother. You were blonde.

Short dyed hair falling over your tanned face. Blonde blonde. June 1984, it says on the back. You got married in September.

I didn’t know there was a June.

*

The Polaroids were in the attic insulation; the roofer’s boot punched through the drywall and they scattered.

A woman in acid-wash and blue eyeliner. Rain-bled, 1984 blue. Western redcedars so tall the frame had to choose her face or the tops of the trees.

It chose her face.

*

There’s one at the border crossing. You’re flipping off the camera and laughing, unguarded. Your mouth’s open, head thrown back. I can see the gap in your teeth you had fixed before I was born.

There’s a dashboard photo – rain on the windshield; there’s a hand on the steering wheel that isn’t yours.

There’s one of trees – so thick they’re almost black, closing behind themselves.

‘Why did you take a picture of trees?’

You look at it for a long time.

‘I don’t remember.’

But you won’t look away.

*

In the kitchen, you spread them on the counter. You pick up the trees and put them down. You fold the rain in half.

*

‘Did Dad know about this trip?’

‘It was a long, long time ago.’

You’re speaking past me, to the photographs.

*

I take three – the border, the trees, and you squinting into sun. The dashboard photo stays on the counter. When I come back, it’s gone.

*

That night I look at the one where you’re squinting into sun, blonde and twenty-two and not yet my mother.

Did you walk into the trees when the shutter closed?

*

June to September: the unmapped distance.

*

I look at her – you – and I try to memorise the angle of that laugh, the carelessness of that middle finger, and your face held up against the trees.

Blue eyeliner. Before September. Before I knew there was a June.

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