Jane’s Photos

People from Malta aren’t known for being tall, but my mother, Jane, is small even by local standards. She is one of seven children. Her stature, chin dimple, and quiet nature set her apart from the five born before her, and the one born after.

She tells me a story about her older brother placing her in a baby buggy and delightedly pushing her down a nearby hill. She can’t tell it without laughing — and neither can my uncle.

At six, her father dies. She can’t remember much about him, but she can easily recall how special she felt when he took her to town without the others. He lives to thirty-nine.

The house they’re living in is over five hundred years old. She will take me there when I am a baby and then it will be my home too. In its kitchen, she makes the sandwiches we will take to the beach. She doesn’t swim, but she hikes her dress up on the sides and the sun catches her legs.

At sixteen, Jane leaves school for work at a local denim factory. She is not sad about this because it is how things are. She has been sewing clothes at home and wants to work in fashion one day.

She tells me about her grandmother waking her up early to help clean, even though her mother wants her to sleep longer. Cleaning remains what my mother does to help.

She will not wake me up early to help clean while I’m growing up.

At nineteen, she leaves the island and goes to the city where three of her brothers live and she works in factories. She will make party supplies, paper rolls, and package cookies.

I am twenty when her mother dies. One day before this, we are walking down the street near our building and my mother thinks she sees her. She cries when it isn’t her, it doesn’t matter that it couldn’t have been.

She meets my father soon after she settles into life in the city. He is from the same island but isn’t like anyone there she knows. He will bring her both joy and pain and he will die before her. He lives to sixty-two. I will love him immeasurably.

After having my sister and me, my mom will continue to work, and she will continue to clean. She will worry about her children, and then she will worry about her grandchildren. She will wish she had named one of us after her grandmother.

One of her brothers dies early. The one that laughs the most. Another dies later. The one that buys me my first bike.

She will show my daughter the pictures she carries in her purse— the ones you get at funerals.

We will visit those who remain and they will greet us at the airport. Jane will hold her siblings like it’s the last time when we leave. While we’re there, her sister will make us sandwiches and we will take them to the beach. Jane will watch me swim with my sister from the shore.

She tells me she would like to visit them one more time.

Jane is seventy-three and is starting to forget. Someone else lives in the old house. I will not sit on its courtyard steps and read again and my mom will not prepare food in its kitchen.

She is quiet and she sews clothes for my daughter’s dolls. She still remembers her parents, my father, and that day on the hill with her brother.