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shift.
Just get over it, Tilly. You know she was just upset because it’s Mom’s birthday
. I run through a list of my prior grievances with her: how many times have I let her off the hook for bad behavior? I didn’t even realize I kept a list, but now, with my annoyance primed and ripe, the list, I conclude, is long.
    My leg twitches restlessly, and I throw a pillow over my head, but shut-eye eludes me. I mull my prom to-dos and mentally flipthrough my list of baby names, but still, sleep won’t come. That goddamn list of Ways Darcy Pisses Me Off is caught on replay, so I right myself, slide my worn plaid slippers over my feet, and pad to my bureau, crouching by the bottom drawer. It creaks when I wrestle it open. Over the years, the stacks of photos have toppled over into each other, so while they were once aligned precisely—delineated by high school, by pre–Mom’s death, by our wedding—now, they’re one amalgamation, the proof of the life I have lived.
    I have taken the bulk of these pictures. Not all, but most. I discovered photography at twelve, at sleepaway camp, when we were mandated to attend all of the afternoon activities whether they interested us or not. And photography was certainly a
not
for me—not for
Silly Tilly
, that girl I haven’t thought of in years, who was better primed to flirt with boys in the dining hall or cannon-ball into the pool on the days when the temperature nearly melted us from the inside out.
    Our bunk trudged to the photo hut and the counselor gave each of us our own camera and told us to explore the grounds, snapping at whatever grabbed our attention. We wandered into the woods, and I just snapped and snapped because I was really thinking about kissing Andy Mosely later after canteen and how to avoid the horror stories I’d heard about locking our braces. But then the instructor asked us to unspool our film, and in the near blackness of the camp’s darkroom, he demonstrated how we were able to turn those passing glimmers of moments into something concrete, something that would mark that second in time forever. And I was captivated—Andy Mosely and his braces flew right out of my brain. And soon, while my friends were working on their canoeing skills or lanyarding bracelets for the bunk, I could be found in that semidarkness, turning a blank paper into a piece of history.
    Tonight, I scour the mess of photos, running my fingers over the chronology of my life, until I find the one I’m after.
    It’s a black-and-white shot. I’d set the timer on the tripod and rushed back to our front porch, throwing myself next to Luanne and plastering a panicked smile across my face just before the click of the camera sounded. My father’s arm is casually thrown across my mother’s shoulders, and we, the trio of sisters, are sitting on the steps at their feet, though my body is somewhat disjointed from my rush to make it in time. The paint is slightly cracked on the frame of the porch, and an American flag falls limp in the background, waiting for a breeze to blow it to attention. But our cheeks are all flushed, and our eyes are all glowing, and together, the five of us, we are a family.
    I feel the pinch of tears, and slowly one, then two, then three roll down my cheeks, where they nosedive onto the carpet. It was the last summer before my mother was diagnosed, before everything changed, before I started hoping that someone could freeze time and point us in a different direction. Before Darcy hardened herself, before we talked around each other, before I ever even thought to make a list of the times that I’d had to save her.
    I rise gingerly to go back to bed, still clutching the photo and running my fingers over my father’s face, marveling at how much he’s aged, how poorly he’s withstood the damage that time can bring. And then I feel it again—there’s no mistaking it now, a cramp in my toe, then my leg, then upward as it whooshes through my heart and then my head, and I