“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know that too.”
Mom wiped her face.
“But if that call had been different, we would’ve dealt with that too.”
Dad nodded.
“Together.”
“Together.”
She smiled.
“And with all mirrors available.”
Dad laughed.
That evening, he disappeared into the garage.
He returned carrying the full-length mirror.
Then he rehung the large dresser mirror.
Finally, he brought Mom the little vanity mirror.
This time, he didn’t decide where it belonged.
“Where do you want this one?”
Mom looked at him.
“Back where it was.”
Dad placed it on the dresser.
Beside it, Mom placed the photograph of her mother.
She didn’t return it to the shoebox.
Several weeks later, I stopped by again.
Mom was standing in front of the dresser mirror.
Most of the swelling had disappeared.
She was still healing.
She wasn’t perfectly symmetrical.
But she looked much more like herself.
She rolled her shoulders backward.
Then forward.
“How’s your back?” I asked.
She smiled at me through the reflection.
“Better.”
Dad appeared in the doorway.
For once, he didn’t say,
“You’re perfect the way you are.”
He didn’t tell her she looked beautiful.
He didn’t tell her what she should see when she looked at herself.
Instead, he asked,
“How do you feel?”
Mom studied her reflection for a moment.
“Like I’m seventy.”
Dad laughed.
She smiled.
“And like I finally did something good for myself.”
Beside her reflection sat the old vanity mirror.
And the photograph of Grandma.
The picture itself hadn’t changed.
Grandma was still standing there after her mastectomy, smiling between her daughters.
What had changed was what the photograph meant.
