ABSTRACT
My mother sends me photographs of our last family Christmas from the Photoshop program she installed on her computer. We are all there: my sister’s three teenage boys hanging on my father, each vying for the next moment, each focusing on him while he, in his Santa’s hat, looks toward the camera; my mother, sitting at her table, watching, ready for conversation while she cuts up celery and carrots for the dip; my brother and sister-in-law, she kissing his cheek, happy after two drinks and after all the good years of marriage; my sister and her husband, she smiling, having found a place to be; my wife and daughter, trying to please the camera’s eye, wondering where they might fit in; my brother’s two boys talking together, almost forgotten in the corner. We are all there, red-faced, grainy, and printed on paper too thin. We are all there, needing the gloss of photography, the smooth shine that tells us to hide the pictures that didn’t come out right. We are all there.
