She ran with her arms spread like a bird and her mouth wide open in a laugh that carried all the way across the lawn to me, no rasp in it, no catch, no stopping halfway to get her breath.

Micah kicked his soccer ball against the trunk of a maple, again and again, chasing it down and bringing it back in a patient rhythm, while the yellow leaves drifted down around him the slow way they do in early October.

I took my phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of the two of them.

I’d taken hardly any pictures in six weeks.

That seemed like something worth fixing.