The fairy whip

They always put Foley and me together. From the time he was four and I was two, they thought it was cute the way we'd hug and hold hands and toddle around together. With him being mildly retarded, and boys being slower than girls anyway, we were just about equal in what we could do. Even so, if you look at the photos from those days, you'll see it's me who's holding Foley's hand, me who's hugging him, while he just kind of stands there.

Where you see it most is in the pictures from Ocean City, when they put us on the rides at Playland. We always went on the Fairy Whip, mostly because it's the very first ride as you come in the door. My mom says I started us riding together, because Foley cried when he was by himself in the flower-shaped car. I scrambled out of my blossom and climbed in beside him. They took the pictures just as the flower hit the corner and slung us around. Foley's mouth is all lopsided in a wail. You can see the tears glistening on his cheeks. I have my arms around him tight, laughing like anything.

We went to Ocean City every summer, and one of my aunts or their boyfriends always took snapshots. My mom had stopped taking pictures by then. My aunts say she always cut people's heads off or showed their big behinds. My father videos everything with his camcorder, but even if we aren't too self-conscious, he hardly ever holds still long enough so you can see what people are really doing, what they're thinking, or even if they're having fun.

My folks don't drink much usually, but once on every vacation, when we kids were put to bed and all the grownups were sitting around on the porch, they used to get loaded. I'd lie awake listening to the voices downstairs, whispering at first, so as not to wake us up, then louder, with gushes of laughter. I could pick out my mom's low chuckle. Once I woke up from a bad dream or something and went downstairs and saw her, perched in the big rattan chair with her bare feet pulled up. She was flushed and...