Deanna Hirsch

If her mother hadn’t died when she was six, the family would have stayed in Paris. She would have been raised a proper French girl and married a proper French boy, perhaps the one standing next to her in the photo — not Jack. She’d have gone to a université instead of Becker Junior College and been a teacher or a journalist, not a travel agent. If Marie had lived Suzanne would have become a mère, not a mom, and taken her babies for walks along the Rue de la Roquette rather than Empire Boulevard. They would’ve grown up in The City of Light instead of the town of Orangeburg. If her mother hadn’t died when she was six there’d be no Mari, named in her memory, no Stephen and no David. And if David hadn’t been born where would I be now?