Page 38 of To the Moon and Back

STEPH THE SKY BEYOND THE SKY BEYOND THE SKY

Later I learned what had happened to my sister. Where she was when I was in the library, and how she got there. Like everyone, I saw the photo.

After that night we would always call it that—The Photo. First printed in the Hollis Daily News , and then the Naugatuck Crier , and then The New York Times . It was everywhere.

In the photo, my sister stands defiant, under a low, old-fashioned gas street lamp, one arm in a fist above her head.

The other is handcuffed to the president’s gate.

Della kneels in the corner of the frame, shielding her face from the camera.

The first time I saw the photo, I wanted to pick up her crouching body from the newsprint and hold her safe in my palm.

In the photo, my sister wears something between regalia and performance art.

A long, high-necked, fitted white dress.

The cut is feminine but severe, silver-buttoned, like shirtwaists in the boarding-school era.

In a wide curve under her belly, where my sister carries her baby, the first row of perfect, silver-colored jingle cones.

Each tin cone hangs from a tiny, knotted satin ribbon.

Red, perfectly placed. Glinting. As the rows of cones repeat down the dress, the length and placement of the ribbons become uneven.

The cones collapse into themselves, as if crushed in many fists.

They’re muddied, cut into sharp and jagged shapes, missing altogether.

She has dipped the full hem of her dress in something red.

In the photo, the other protesters wear jeans, coats, and hats. They did not bring handcuffs. My sister’s handcuffs are beaded, neon pink and blue and purple. Like she has been waiting for a night like this. They are glow-in-the-dark, spotless, shining.

In the photo, campus police surround her.

There are thirteen of them, the crimson Hollis crest sewn to their black collared shirts like my sister has crossed into a new nation.

On the other side of the gate, in the far back corner of the photo, spilling out of the president’s house: a yellow light.

The shadow of someone—someone small, a child?

—stands in a window, holds back a curtain, looks down.

In the photo, my sister is having contractions.

In the photo, Jason stands in front of her.

His arms are wide, his body is between my sister and the officers.

He is chest to chest with one, his eyes terrified but his posture tall.

I can see the past version of him, the soldier, part of the peacekeeping patrol on the Kosovo border.

He is shouting something. There’s a bend to his knees.

If you look carefully, you can see the sweat on his face. The muscles tight in his jaw.

In the photo, Kayla looks up and the camera flashes white against her skin.

Her mouth is wide, screaming. Her face is angled toward the lens and her eyes scrunch into flattened stars.

There is a flicker of strength at the corner of her lips.

She looks determined, happy almost, even in this wave of pain.