Quietly, she opened the door and tip-toed across the floor. She knew which BOARD to avoid, the one that creaked and groaned even from her slight, 6-year-old weight. Careful, so as not to distract, she slid in place, settling by her mom’s feet. Her mom reached down with a BRIEF touch to Alice’s head that both acknowledged her presence and communicated to wait. She knew that her mom would soon put down her BRUSH and invite Alice into her lap. Then they would talk gravely of color, line, perspective, all sorts of arty things. Alice loved these moments, how seriously her mother listened to her.

She would think of these times often, in later years, as sat in her own studio, and pulled her children into her lap. Tender, bittersweet thoughts that reached across so many years of love and loss.

Georg’ann

Desperate for dental floss, Catherine made her way to her wife’s bathroom. Opening the top vanity drawer, she FOUND the floss resting among the creams, nail files, hairpins, a makeup BRUSH, and randomly an unopened set of false eyelashes. Woven through the clutter were a few strands of dyed dishwater blond hair and a single coarse strand of silver.

Catherine paused, staring down into the drawer, hand resting on the floss. She was caught off guard by the intimacies of this drawer, imaging the daily movement of these items across the skin, through the hair, into the mouth. Those soft places she no longer touched.

Heather