Carol L. Bowman

As Florence drove out our mile-long dirt lane, I felt happier than on a Christmas morning. My mother’s friend ignored family protocol to treat the four sisters equally and often brought gifts just for me. I never understood why, but perhaps she had also been a ‘stuck in the middle’ child, wearing faded, hand-me-down clothes

Soon our journey would be over. That framed picture, displayed atop the bedroom bureau would no longer be “just a photograph.” Soon we’d be able to hug Miriam. As we inched up the steep slope of the extinct volcano, Villejo kept the four-wheel-drive steady. On our vertical ascent, neighborhood housing declined from well-kept adobes in