I remember

A very long time ago, I sat on the floor of a little house in Brookwood trying to impress my boyfriend's buddy that I was somehow smarter, prettier, more grounded, less rough around the edges than I was.

The boyfriend helped by having me leave my eyeglasses in the car and enjoy the evening playing Monopoly by instinct. This was a man I instinctively knew was not right for me. No, that's not how I thought it.  What I thought, when he questioned me on my background as if I were filing a job application or used the word  irregardless, which is not really a word, was that had I known him in college, when I still had a backbone, I wouldn't have given him the time of day. It was instinct and I ignored it.

I have no idea if his friend was impressed. Nothing that might have changed did change. The relationship, such as it was, ended with the sigh of a vacuum pulling from some small space the last of our complications. What did remain was the friend's quizzing eyes. These young alert men with their quizzing eyes and tallying ways...to understand them would be to give them power. I would not. But I cannot forget the look. Such a long time later I painted these eyes though until the little picture was finished I did not recognize them.

Here is the picture. Here is the memory. You really can't know which detail will stick, can you? Or how it will manifest.