“The tear on my mother’s cheek got larger and larger. It detached from her face and became a shiny globe, widening outward like an inflating balloon. At first the tear floated in the air between them, but as it expanded it took my mother and father into itself. I saw them suspended, separate but beginning to slowly drift towards one another. Then my mother looked past my father’s shoulder, looked through the bright skin of the tear, at me. The tear enlarged until at last, it took me in, too. It was warm and salt. As soon as I got used to the strange light inside the tear, I began to swim clumsily towards my parents.”

“I looked over at her face. I could see the light from my heartbeat on her tears.”

“I shake my head. "Remember, Mother. There are no mistakes." She smiles through her tears, leaning in to kiss my cheek "No mistakes, my angel.”

“Stung, I lifted my eyes to his and saw them as if for the first time. Eyes the color of rain, soft as dew and strong enough to etch a mountainside. Tears shimmered there — tears, ay Mother! Or maybe they were in my own eyes.”

“I see her again: her face wet with tears, her eyes searching mine. Slowly, very slowly, I reach my hands out and trace my fingertips along her skin, first down her neck, so warm and fragile, then across her breasts and down along the curves of her hips. Then with all my strength I wrap my arms around her and pull her toward me, but she is gone.”

“I’m so scared,” I whispered, as more tears began to roll down my cheeks. I looked up at them. “That big world out there…I barely remember it.”