Yearbook

Dinner collapsed into an gloomy discussion of parents falling apart by degrees.  I sat it out and later thought I must look to them like my father.  You might mistake me for contemplative but my mind is elsewhere, staying out of trouble.

The conversation meandered through high school.  A yearbook appeared.  I went through it trying to come up with one meaningful thing to say about every portrait in my class.  I managed two.  I spoke up for the girl who made all her own clothing even then (and likely still does) and for the boy who made his mark by showing up drunk two days into grade nine.

I counted two suicides but there could be more.  I hold on to few of the markers that others use.  I looked through that high school yearbook and realized that I don’t want to know what became of anyone until I know what became of me.