She simply placed a bowl of potato salad on the table and sat down on the blanket beside Mason’s niece.
The little girl crawled into her lap and ran tiny fingers across Maribel’s head.
Maribel arrived without a wig or scarf.
“It’s soft,” she said.
Maribel laughed.
Just laughed.
The photographer called everyone together near the oak trees.
For the first time since cancer treatment began, Maribel did not ask to stand in the back. She did not fix anything. She did not hide behind anyone taller.
Maribel did not ask to stand in the back.
She wrapped one arm around the little girl in her lap, no longer wondering which version of herself the family would remember.
The camera clicked.
That photograph became the family’s favorite.
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Not because everyone looked perfect.
