Another shows a woman wearing a pale green chiffon dress that falls just below her knees. In the third an old man slumps in a dark room, sunk into a chair in front of a flickering TV screen. Children and pets, husbands and wives, graduations and wedding and funerals. Recipes for pot roast, and chicken and green bean casserole. How to turn on the stove. The words to songs. My name and my face and the knowledge that I’ m my mother’ s daughter.
The man stands by the door, leaning on the mop. Stitched on his shirt pocket are the words“ Lost and Found.”
~
I buy the largest container of bubble soap I can find, a big 16-ounce bottle. I practice in the parking lot, leaning up against my car. Small bubbles hurry away in streams. Larger bubbles remain on the wand until my breath releases them. Then wind carries them away, up over the cars and lamp posts and buildings.
Inside I bring my lips to the wand and whisper: You are wearing a red cashmere sweater given to you by a man you loved but wouldn’ t marry. The son you ask for every day died ten years ago from cancer. That woman who visits you every day is your daughter. The bubbles leave me and flurry through the doorways.
I step inside my mother’ s room, dip the wand deep into the bottle.“ I am your daughter” I whisper to the wand, birthing a clutch of bubbles with my words. My mother follows the bubbles with her eyes, and raises a finger to touch one. When it pops she startles, then lowers her hand to her lap. I blow more bubbles, and pop one myself. She smiles. I rub the bubble soap onto her fingers, over each scoop of nail, swell of knuckle, along every crease of her palms. Again I dip the ring and lift it to my lips. This time I speak only my name. Tiny bubbles flow from the wand. When my mother reaches out her finger one bubble clings to her, and she leans down to peer inside it.
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