what she did. Nobody had seen the photos, not even in the weeks after, when her mother lost the weight and helicoptered out of their lives like some primordial seed. Gale and Aaron still look for her in the treetops sometimes.
The conveyor belt keeps belching the blast: photos of people crowded around the shuttle in the moments before, in the moments after … How did she keep taking those pictures? Pressing the levers and turning the knobs—even after? The familiar motions securing her in the present, perhaps just long enough to distract her from the immediate past. Distractions aren’t given enough credit, she thinks and takes the photograph—the one with flumes of smoke cascading like flower petals from the explosion’s great orange eye. She pushpins it to the space above the cash register.
This is where Gale’s story ends. With her ink-blotted fingertips and her misdirected but intelligent anger: I hate those stupid pebbles, she thinks and tucks the bluebonnet back in through her wrist. ♦
Laura I. Miller | 13