“
Baby Cooper and Aaron running around causing trouble,” Dad said, setting an album on Lark’s lap. “Aaron was a very good baby. Didn’t cry at all. Not once.”
When I laughed, Dad gave me a wink. “Here was our boy at three months.”
Lark looked at the picture and laughed. Knowing exactly what she thought was so funny, I explained, “They thought they were adopting a girl, so I wore pink those first few months.”
“Babies grow so fast at that age,” Mom said. “No reason to waste money on new clothes when he wouldn’t know the difference.”
Lark laughed at this comment and kept laughing until the pictures reached when I was three.
Her eyes moistened and again I was the one to explain. “Lark’s little brother died around that age.”
As Mom and Dad descended on her with hugs, I never saw my girl look so startled. Life was different for her now. No longer was she struggling to survive in a dysfunctional family of revolving fathers and a cold mother. Now, she was a Barnes and we were fully functional and only slightly on the weird side.
“You have curls,” she cooed, running her finger over a picture of me at five.
“I loved those curls,” Mom said.
“She put barrettes in those curls,” I muttered, standing behind the three of them as they looked through the album. Ignoring my parents’ laughter, I continued, “I begged to have my hair shaved short. Once it was, I never looked back.
”
”