Clementine knew what would happen in the coming years as her daughter matured into a young lady.

I’ve seen them in the house—little Meriday and Constance, running together down the hallways, peeking into different rooms and scampering off again, giggling.

I do not believe I have the constitution to live in the swamp, but it draws me to it still, like it drew Constance. Elizabeth and I used to venture into the swamp when we were children, and I think how much more interesting a journey that would be than sitting here in the car, on the way to the doctor. The dull and daily journeys of adulthood feel so flat, so lifeless.

We’ve reached the perfect lull for me to tell her about Julian. Now, now I should tell her, with the sun warming us through the windows, with Elizabeth commenting blandly on the landscape, clearly looking for something to talk about. “Look at those cows, all in a circle around that other cow. You’d think they’re forming a cult,” she says with her chin in her hand. And then, a few miles later, “What do you suppose a cow cult would worship?”

Julian, I think. Julian. Instead, my mouth trips around the words, and I say, “Reminds me of that time we saw all those birds congregating together in the swamp. Just a huge cluster of them. Remember?”

Perhaps Elizabeth doesn’t remember those bygone days as fondly as I do, because she makes a face. “Those birds were clustered together because they were all trying to get at the dead deer. Scavengers.” She shudders. “Jesus, the thing was half eaten. I had nightmares about it. You don’t remember that part?”

I shrug.

The gloomy mystery of the swamp drew me into unchecked, uncharted exploration. Sometimes she came with me; sometimes I went in alone. So often back then I found myself exploring the secretive depths of the swamp. My travels took me gliding along canals, the murky greenish water reflecting me, replicating me, re-creating me. Remembering my face. I trod through perilous unstable muck threaded with cottonmouth snakes and laden with sinkholes waiting to suck me in.

On second thought, I can see why Elizabeth might not think so fondly on it.

“Mom should never have let us roam around in there on our own,” she says. “I would never let Julian do what we did.”

It does seem different, now, when I see little Sam and Liz creeping into the marsh. What had seemed like such freedom now tastes more of neglect. When you’re a child, all you want is freedom. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you need your parents.

After my father killed himself, Elizabeth and I took care of ourselves while Mother shut herself away with her grief and her solitude and her self-loathing. She was not there to tell us not to wander too far into the swamp, to warn us of the dangers that lay therein; and when I see her now watching this perverse version of old home movies, watching us as children, watching our memories and echoes flit by, she is always watching what she missed in the first place, when she was too busy with her sorrow to notice or care.