Read The Kiss: A Memoir for Free Online Page B

intense that afterward no one speaks.
    My mother breaks away and goes into the kitchen. She returns with a platter of cheeses and vegetables and little sandwiches, her comments arranged with as much care as the food. We all stare at one another, fascinated, years of observation collapsed into minutes. We catalog similarities, differences. Whose am I?
    From the neck down I’m a replica of my mother, but my head resembles his. The line of his jaw is echoed in mine, as are his cheekbones, his ears, his brow. And how mysterious it is that my father and I do the same things with our hands as we talk. I’ve never had the chance to see his gestures and learn to mimic them. I watch and listen as my parents begin to argue. They can’t reconstruct a year, a season, or even a week from the past without disagreeing. Whatever they talk about their wedding day, my birth it’s as if my mother and father experienced two separate, unconnected realities, a disjuncture that allows no compromise, no middle ground. The picture that I form of their courtship is one that I have to piece together, no matter how hard I try to make things fit, it will always have the look of an incomplete collage some details too large, others too small, many missing. My father takes pictures of my mother and me. An accomplished amateur photographer, he owns a number of large-format cameras and develops his work himself in a darkroom he’s set up in his parsonage. I watch as he poses and records images of her, and she watches as he poses me.
    Though no one counts aloud, I sense that he is careful to make an equal number of exposures of both of us, and that we all keep track of this quantifiable measure of his attention. Then, “How about the two of you together? ” he asks, and my mother and I sit next to each other on the hearth. These pictures of my mother and me are the last I have of us together. As it turns out, they are overexposed, my father never makes so I have only the proof sheet away and goes into the kitchen. She returns with a platter of cheeses and vegetables and little sandwiches, her comments arranged with as much care as the food. We all stare at one another, fascinated, years of observation collapsed into minutes. We catalog similarities, differences. Whose am I?
    From the neck down I’m a replica of my mother, but my head resembles his. The line of his jaw is echoed in mine, as are his cheekbones, his ears, his brow. And how mysterious it is that my father and I do the same things with our hands as we talk. I’ve never had the chance to see his gestures and learn to mimic them. I watch and listen as my parents begin to argue. They can’t reconstruct a year, a season, or even a week from the past without disagreeing. Whatever they talk abouttheir wedding day, my birthit’s as if my mother and father experienced two separate, unconnected realities, a disjuncture that allows no compromise, no middle ground. The picture that I form of their courtship is one that I have to piece together, no matter how hard I try to make things fit, it will always have the look of an incomplete collagesome details too large, others too small, many missing. My father takes pictures of my mother and me. An accomplished amateur photographer, he owns a number of large-format cameras and develops his work himself in a darkroom he’s set up in his parsonage. I watch as he poses and records images of her, and she watches as he poses me.
    Though no one counts aloud, I sense that he is careful to make an equal number of exposures of both of us, and that we all keep track of this quantifiable measure of his attention. Then, “How about the two of you together? ” he asks, and my mother and I sit next to each other on the hearth. These pictures of my mother and me are the last I have of us together. As it turns out, they are overexposed, my father never makes so I have only the proof sheets showing the two of us, our heads inclined, our bodies not touching. Behind my