I found an old photograph of my mother

From the 1960s, leather jacket and skirt, posed fetchingly but conservatively up against some sort of flower cart. Hair poofed out and flipped, very ’60s. Eye liner and, I’m sure, false eyelashes. Her Emma
Peel days. Back when she was doing modelling for some local
department stores. Back when local department stores had
models. Another world, it seems. It was taken by a photographer
she had an affair with. She’s either in denial about the affair or in
denial that I knew about it, but I was 8 and pretty much knew
what was going on, and was angry a lot of the time that I was
being used in the middle of it all, that she was looking for my
approval of this man when I just wanted my father to come back
home. But that’s all years behind, and other than that, I can’t think
of a time when I didn’t fundamentally like my mother. I think she’s
very cool. But I wish we could talk about this, because I want to
ask her: Did you miss him forever?