She has a name and Molly and I used it often. We bought her OshKosh overalls. She did not have a vestigial tail. Her eyes were blue and her hair was sandy blond. She slept on her belly. Her fingers looked like tiny sausages. She adored me. She adored Molly. We made mistakes.I am walking along the path Molly and I used to take to Loon Nest. It is a rough path, its only wear courtesy of our feet. The path is lined with droopy hemlocks, their egg-shaped cones littered along the ground, and tall false cedars with their scale-like leaves overlapping like shingles.Molly used to collect hemlock cones, spreading them across windowsills and along the mantel of our fireplace until it felt like we were living outside.I stop and pick up a cone and several fallen needles and smell them.We were a family.Molly catches up to me in my mind, not that she has been far away since Ginny and I arrived here at my home. We are walking along the path for the first time. Our daughter has not yet been born. It is summer, so the air is hot and sweet.
