Before They Were Our Parents

Springtime Magnolias in Back Bay, photo by R. Birkenshaw
Designed and printed by The Postcard Factory, distributed by Card Works, Inc.

Mom sent me this postcard from Boston (she sent one to No too). She wrote on the back, "This is where your father was living when we met. Easy to see why I was seduced!"


When we talked on the phone I told her I'd received the card. She said that all the brownstones in Back Bay have bay windows, and she sat in the window with my father, sipping Polish vodka. I imagine my father wearing the suit and tie and my mother in a short light-colored dress, each holding a small glass of vodka icy from the freezer. They are smiling in the spring sunlight coming through the windows, years before they were parents, maybe before they knew they would marry.


I asked what Dad had cooked for dinner. She said baked mushrooms and chicken livers, and it was delicious, though she "was so in love, it would have tasted good if it was shoe leather."


I could hear the smile in her voice when she added, "Your father was such a phony. He never cooked again after that!"