The hostess seats the three of them at a patio table overlooking the lake. They ask the waitress for Manhattans.

The woman turns to the younger man. “So Tom, tell me about growing up with this guy.” She glances at the older man, winks, puts a hand on his rounded shoulder. “Andy here, he never talks about anything from back then.”

Andy smiles back at her, shrugs, and gazes at the mountains in the distance. Tom shrugs with an identical slight turn of his head. He says, “Sorry, Barb. There’s not much to tell.”

She looks from the younger brother to the older, and back again. “Jeez, you guys are so alike. But come on, there must be something. I want to imagine him as a boy.”

sparrows dart 
in and out of view 
all the hedges sing 

Tom watches the wide sky, the sun sliding behind the trees. He says, “He taught me how to pitch and catch. Bought me my first glove. I didn’t think anything of it back then, but now.... Anyway, I was only eight when he went off to college.”

Barb leans to kiss Andy’s cheek. “I knew I’d found a good guy.” Their drinks arrive. They sip in silence till Barb asks, “But isn’t there more? Holidays, friends, food?”

“She thinks she’ll understand me better if she knows my past,” Andy says. “I keep telling her I was raised by wolves but she doesn’t believe me.”

Tom chuckles. “That line never works for me, either.” He looks at Barb. “Aren’t we supposed to attend to the present moment these days? Be mindful of the ever-changing now, and all that?” He lifts his glass, is about to drink, then turns to Andy: “Oh wait—remember the chair?”

children’s voices echo 
across the water—
distant ghosts 

Andy looks blank. “The chair?”

“Yeah, those kitchen chairs with the red vinyl seats. Remember that time at dinner when Dad suddenly stood and threw his chair? Right at us. It hit you.”

Andy stares at Tom, then flicks his hand as though batting at a fly. He puts on his sunglasses. “Nah, I don’t remember that.”

Barb opens her mouth, seems about to speak, then bites her lip.

shadows fall 
across the patio table 
the lake holds still 

Jennifer L. Freed’s

collection When Light Shifts: A Memoir in Poems, exploring themes of identity, health, and care-giving in the aftermath of her mother’s stroke, was a finalist for the 2022 Sheila Margaret Motton Prize. In the 2025 Eric Hoffer Awards, it received three distinctions: finalist for the Medal Provocateur, second place for Legacy Non-fiction, and Grand Prize short list. Her parents continue to inhabit her poetry. Recent poems appear in Atlanta Review, Rust and Moth, Sheila-na-Gig, Vox Populi, What the House Knows, and others. She lives in Massachusetts.

Author’s website: https://jfreed.weebly.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Gravity, Ms. Freed’s first haibun, published in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 28, April 2025)

⚡ Six Words in an Ellen Bass Poem Take Me Back To My Brother’s Hospital Room in Atlanta Review (Spring/Summer 2025)

⚡ List of Publications at the author’s website