I lay there petting Abby and thinking too. I think about Mama. I’m having trouble remembering her again. I can see her shape but where her face should be is like rippling water. Same with Daddy and J.P. and Peggy and Aunt Beulah. They’re fading away.

Mama used to say all we got is family. Which means I got nothing now. Nothing but Jesse and him barely. He tells me I’ll grow into being alone. But that’s him not me. We ain’t all alike. There’s good men and bad men. Brave men and cowards. Some are on the run from the past and some want to keep it with them.

I can’t help it I’m crying. Abby climbs on my chest and licks my face. What’s the matter? Jesse says. I don’t want to tell but it busts out of me. I’m missing Mama. You want to look at the pictures? Jesse says. He goes to his grip and takes out the album and I sit with him on the bed.

He points to the first picture. This is Mama and this is Daddy, he says. On their wedding day, I say. They went to Mr. Borden’s studio directly from church to get a photograph made and Mama said to Mr. Borden, I better look pretty in it or we ain’t paying. I got the same eyes as her the same nose. Jesse always says whenever I forget her I can look in a mirror. Jesse favors Daddy. Not so tall but seeming bigger. Crow-black hair and eyes. A girl’s pouty lips. He’s got a smile like Daddy’s too. One you don’t see much but when you do makes you smile too. I think he looks like Elvis Presley. He says I need glasses.

The next picture’s the whole family. Mama Daddy Jesse when he was seven sister Peg when she was five brother J.P. when he was three and me just born. Jesse says, You remember what we called you? You all called me Butterbean, I say. ’Cause you looked just like one, Jesse says. I say, You know what they should’ve called you? What? Jesse says. Turd, I say, ’cause that’s what you look like.