Jennie, in glimpses

The first photo I have is 1925. Four girls, heavy of thigh, bobbed of hair, sit together along a bench, each left leg crossed over each right. It is what one writer will call the Era of Undressing, which explains their bare knees, the shadowed curves of their upper arms. And these—if the reflection on water in the backdrop suggests correctly—are bathing costumes, these are the narrow-sleeved numbers in which they will swim.

The teenager on the far left, holding a ball in her raised hands, will become my grandmother. She doesn’t know that yet. She is involved in the unsmiling posing of the time period. She is stopping her play. Her jaw is set. The far-left part of her hair will remain for five decades. She holds the ball, and she waits it out.