Ambivalent Legacies

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

I was five years old when we moved into the big white house from our tiny trailer where my younger sister and I had once shared a room with Mama’s sewing machine and her mountains of fabric. Back then, we would fall asleep to the whir of the threaded needle stitching together dresses or pajamas — whatever project Mama would be working on late into the night. When we moved into the big house, we no longer had the comfort of that familiar sound nor that…