When she told me she was moving to Cleveland, I know I didn’t help matters by laughing, but really, it was the last thing I expected. To me, Cleveland was so obviously a cage that I couldn’t imagine Jane wanting to climb into it. What did her grandparents think of this idea? I asked, at first skeptical and then astounded when she said they’d promised to send her a plane ticket.

Deb, I was so furious calling my parents’ number that it took me three tries. As my shaking finger turned the dial, I wavered between equal certainty that Jane was fibbing and that she was telling the truth. My voice was a model of composure as I asked Mother if Jane’s claim was correct. I didn’t realize how much I’d been counting on my daughter being a liar until I learned that she wasn’t. Mother explained they had made Jane this offer four summers ago. No, she didn’t expect I would have known about it: I needed to remember what had been happening then and how worried they’d been. They wouldn’t have sent Jane a plane ticket without asking me first. When Jane had called earlier, they’d simply said they were willing to have her—but if Jane was so unhappy and if her school was so unsuitable, perhaps it made sense for her to spend the year with them? That was when my temper erupted and I became my father’s daughter. Jane had never heard me, even at my worst moments, use the voice that told Mother if she thought they could so much as begin to discuss such a plan without me, they had even less respect for me than I’d thought. Jane would not be coming. Not only that, they had lost the privilege of being in contact with either of us. By the time I hung up the phone, Jane had locked herself inside the bedroom. I knew it would have been pointless trying to talk to her, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. I divided the night between developer, stop bath, and fixer until I was tired enough to fall onto the couch in a dead, dreamless sleep.

93. Central Park, New York, 1967

Lillian’s Central Park photo feels like a self-portrait to me even though she’s not in it. The family of four standing at the left side of the photo screams out of town. Partly it’s the matching wide-brimmed hats on the two boys, and partly it’s the way mom, dad, and kids are all standing like they’re at a museum or a zoo and not a park, staring at something they’d like to keep at a distance. Meanwhile, the wild-eyed, braless, and shaggy-haired hippies scattered across the park’s lawn are acting like the family is invisible or, more to the point, irrelevant. In my mind, I pull back beyond the photo’s edge to see my mother standing with her camera, irrelevant twice removed.