Write On

  Five months into the pandemic I ordered a desk and set up my office in my bedroom, 16” from my bed. For the first five months I had been hunched over the kitchen island on a bar stool with my feet in the spice basket, and four feet away Emma worked from the couch - it was not ideal.   Emma came home a day after I started working remotely and, because she was still teaching in Ireland, often taught from her bed in the guest room at 4 am (10 am in Dublin).    During the days, we dodged phone calls and meetings (Emma like to work with music on, I do not), often taking calls in the bathroom or running upstairs if the call didn’t require access to a laptop.   I had grand visions of working from the deck, lovely calming view at the ready, but the reality was that the VPN was spotty out there and the noise factors of wind, trucks backing up, and neighbors also working outside meant the conditions were never perfect. Occasionally I could rock a few hours working on a spreadsheet if the sun a

I tried to push aside my emotions—to look at the photo objectively and see what was really there not what I was afraid was there.  I wouldn’t let my mind play tricks on me.  I took a deep breath and squinted at the photo in Chris’s hand.  To the right of the trunk, Chris and Andi, dressed bunched in their arms, were doubled over, laughing.  To the left, Becca posed behind the pink meringue, lips pursed like a fashion model.  I leaned toward her, grinning, the slinky, green dress held up to my shoulders and my left leg kicking wonkily out to one side.  All that was perfectly normal. Behind the trunk…someone… peeked over the open lid.  The pattern fabric covering the inside of the top almost looked like a dress she wore.   I blinked.  “Is it just a smudge?  Or a fingerprint?” Andi shook her head.  “I see a face.  Eyes and a nose.  Hair even.  I think she’s…smiling.” Chris studied the picture then looked over it and across the room.  “Could it be Ellen’s reflection in the window?” Andi sn