The last time I saw my first love was on my 17th birthday—thirty years later, a woman who looked exactly like her stepped into my yard

she was half-turned toward the camera, laughing at something out of frame. The small scar on her collarbone. The way her hair sat differently on the left side than the right.

Thirty years is a long time to know a photograph by heart.

This year’s birthday started the same way all the others have.

I was out in the yard before seven, the mower running, the continue reading …