when things changed

I was the kid who needed glasses the first month of second grade. I wore blue frames with three tiny flowers at each temple. After my brother and I were hit by a 1965 Mustang, I got replacement blue-framed spectacles with no flowers.

I was the one who after the accident became an early riser, the girl with the spotless room who made her bed every day, wanting it nice for the relief of making it home.

In the full-color photograph of my second grade class, I’m the girl in front grinning broadly with bright eyes and flowered frames. I’m the one who noticed, when they delivered the photos to each of us in December to carry home, that my smile was more boisterous than anyone’s. By then I had new glasses, but the picture was taken before.

I was the big sister, in October of second grade, grasping my brother’s hand on the way home from the candy store. An old lady from church stopped us to chat. “Be careful now,” she said to me before we parted. “Take care crossing the street with your brother.”

I tried looking both ways over large parked cars. Raindrops splattered my lenses. I was the one who said, “Go!” and led the way in front of the yellow Mustang. Its grinning headlight eyes didn’t see and its brakes couldn’t stop in time on the wet pavement.

Danny’s hand clutched mine the rest of the way. Adults helped. They had seen us dart in front of the woman in the Mustang. They got Daddy when we entered the house. He called to Mommy, who was on the phone.

I was the kid who, after lunch in April of second grade, walked my brother to afternoon kindergarten. I made us awfully late. The bell had already rung and I missed reading time. But the patrol boys weren’t out that day, and the cars kept coming.