Mom posted 6,542 pictures of me before I was ten. If I picked up a ball or even a fork, the camera was on: “Danny and me --date night!" We’d sip milkshakes and watch for likes. At twenty-five, I’d throw my arms up in triumph. Dad would growl, and Mom would shriek, “I’m teaching him counting!" I was eight when Dad left.
At ten years old, my grin was so weak I refused to smile. “What’s wrong?" Mom cried. She reached for me, but I jerked away. So she stalked me, sneaking shots of my back. At twelve I gave the camera the finger, and she stormed to the car and we cried it all out.
From then on she only photographed things. I set my RC boat in the lake. The pictures show its voyage in stages. Thirty feet. Sixty. At forty yards it could barely be seen. I imagined I was on it, sailing away.
I’m twenty now, and I sail with my dad. He sits on the edge and watches the water. He doesn’t speak and neither do I, we just slice through the water away from the shore.