Without the title you wouldn’t know, or maybe you would. The crying girl and her mom take up most of the picture, but behind them you can see the bridge cables swooping up and away like the top of a giant spiderweb. An adult face in such extreme distress would signal something big: death, dismemberment, the end of love. But that little girl might just need a snack; or maybe she’s freaked out by the decorative bird that looks like it’s trying to tear itself off the side of her mom’s feathered hat.

I should know. It’s a practical guarantee I was with Lillian at the time, though I would have been under two years old, meaning that the experience is buried where memories go before words, to stew and emit their invisible fumes. Going by the hat, let’s call it spring. This implies there is a chance the picture comes from our first-ever walk across the bridge, which Kenneth Lowell described in lively detail when I reached him by phone after dialing and hanging up several times.

KENNETH LOWELL: The day I showed Lil the house, I told her a friend of mine in Brooklyn Heights needed me to water his plants while he was away. We could walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and make an afternoon of it. Lil had never been, so I said I would take the stroller to free up her hands, but she explained it was part of her kit. I was amazed what she could do with that thing. Pushing the stroller, the camera resting on the handlebar as she walked, she would stop when she saw something. Then she’d turn to the side to free up her camera hand, bring the camera to waist-level, and snap a shot without ever looking down.