{"id":597,"date":"2026-03-05T18:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/?page_id=597"},"modified":"2026-03-05T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T18:27:09","slug":"photography-detail-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/photography-detail-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Photography Detail"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

Photography Detail<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

Juneau\u2019s Trinity<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

by Sarah Rossiter<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

Every fine day Melissa takes Lily for a walk. Usually it\u2019s mid-afternoon by the time she lifts Lily from the white wooden crib and settles her in the English stroller. \u201cLily star-shine, Lotus Blossom,\u201d Melissa croons as she pulls the straps tight over Lily\u2019s shoulders. Now that Lily has learned to walk Melissa is more than ever grateful for the heavy stroller with its shiny chrome finish and quiet rolling wheels. The leather straps hold Lily in place, and she is still content to sit for hours as Melissa pushes her down the leaf-bright streets of early fall.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tShe knows this day is the last, so she walks, oh so slowly, to the bluff above the lake where she sees white mist floating like a shroud above quiet water. Her mind floats too as she watches Lily wave her fingers, delicate as daisy petals. Melissa bends to cover Lily\u2019s hands with butterfly kisses, light as air, though what she wants to do is cry. \n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tAlert, she checks the rocky beach for signs of danger. One cannot be too careful. Every day bodies are broken and kidnappers lurk. The mist, though fine as lace, stinks of rotting fish. It also hides what can\u2019t be seen but what she senses must be there. \n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

Melissa turns, and walks west beneath tall oaks, past winding drives, toward the library and Juneau. When Lily reaches up to catch the sunlight streaming through rustling leaves, Melissa leans to stroke her cheek, and prays.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

Or tries to pray, but no words come. When she was eight her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Morgan, said that if she prayed she\u2019d feel Jesus lay his hand on her forehead in bed at night. And so she did, hoping it might keep her safe, but from what she wasn\u2019t sure.

But Melissa is now fourteen, Mrs. Morgan is dead, and Jesus is too, crucified on the bloody cross.

Melissa prays anyway. What else can she do? Every night she prays. \u201cJesus Jesus, show yourself.\u201d She sings it, over and over, under her breath. Each night she waits, but he doesn\u2019t return. Or maybe he does only after she\u2019s sleeping. The door opens, creaking, in her dreams. At least she thinks she must be dreaming.

\u201cJesus, Jesus,\u201d she sings in a whisper as friends pass, biking home from school. They wave once, and are gone. It doesn\u2019t matter. Lily\u2019s birth didn\u2019t surprise them. Her devotion does. They don\u2019t understand, though how can she blame them? She doesn\u2019t understand herself why, for eighteen months, she\u2019s hovered like a moth drawn to Lily\u2019s clear bright flame. Her crib is next to Melissa\u2019s bed. Melissa insisted. She needs to see Lily\u2019s face first thing every morning. Lily, somehow, belongs to her.

Before Lily, Melissa hugged trees. The white birch, bark soft as skin, was Melissa\u2019s favorite. Ear pressed to the bark, she heard the tree whisper, \u201cI am here. Always. You are not alone.\u201d For if Lily is a star, Melissa\u2019s mother is the moon. Untouchable. And if her mother is the moon, her father is the planet Mars, fierce and flaming. A businessman, he travels, and when not traveling, orbits through the house day and night from room to room.

For thirteen years they were a trinity, a word Melissa knows from Sunday School. Father, Mother, little girl until she\u2019s twelve and her period comes. The Curse, her mother calls it. Her mother is right. It is a curse. She\u2019s a woman now and wishes she weren\u2019t.

When Lily arrived, glad was too small a word for what Melissa felt. She spent hours sitting beside her, listening to her feathered breathing. She studied her face, the skin like silk, the rosebud mouth, searching for clues. Whose was she really? She held Lily\u2019s ear to hers, listening as if to a shell, hoping to hear whatever secrets were hidden inside.

They reach the park, where Melissa unbuckles Lily and lifts her onto the back of the life-size iron deer that stands beneath the copper beech. She swings up behind her. Holding Lily tight, she tells her how she used to ride through afternoons of lemon light and winter days of cut-glass blue. \u201cSometimes,\u201d she whispers into Lily\u2019s ear, \u201cI felt the deer rise, and I went soaring where no one could find me.\u201d

Melissa\u2019s breath tickles her ear and Lily laughs, but Lily is always laughing. She is the happiest of babies. And though Melissa knows Lily can\u2019t understand, it helps to say out loud what she\u2019s told no one. There is so much she hasn\u2019t told, but it\u2019s hard to know what\u2019s real. Sometimes she thinks she must be dreaming, or someone else is dreaming her, that she isn\u2019t real either.

Grass shivers in a gentle breeze, and Melissa yearns to feel the lifting with Lily anchored in her arms. Together, the deer will carry them over the ocean to white-capped mountains in Peru where hidden caves await them. The caves are real, Melissa\u2019s seen photographs in the National Geographic; one showed a girl exactly her age, an Aztec princess, who appeared to be sleeping though she\u2019d been dead two thousand years, buried deep in the secret dark. \u201cYou\u2019ll be safe there,\u201d says Melissa, though Lily\u2019s too young to understand what Melissa can\u2019t explain, not even to herself.

Holding Lily, she slides down from the deer\u2019s back, slow and smooth like water from rock, and strapping her into the stroller again, pushes Lily up the hill to the library. She sees Juneau sitting on the stone bench in front of the building, the ground littered with the prickly balls of chestnut burrs. She sits as if waiting just for them, blue sneakers set apart, planted solid. Rooted. She sits in silence. Her hair is gray, her eyes a liquid brown flecked with gold.

The secret understanding Melissa shares with Juneau dwells in silence. There is silence everywhere but the silence at home is deep and dark, a well without water. Juneau takes Melissa\u2019s hand, holding it between her own. With Juneau she is not afraid. Their silence flows like light through leaves, a river of honey, sweet and thick. Behind them the library rises, a cathedral of gray granite shot through with mica that glitters in the autumn sun.

Juneau works in Fiction, scrubbing floors. It was there Melissa met her years before when as a child she dreamed her way down the long high-ceilinged stacks. Eyes closed, she fingered dusty pages, smelled the warm book-scented air. Melissa liked the narrow tunnels she followed, her fingers tracing along the spines of books as if reading Braille, so she didn\u2019t see Juneau until she tripped across her kneeling form, and fell.

The floor was wet, slippery with soap, and Melissa, looking at Juneau, felt cold marble melt beneath her. Juneau, kneeling, smiled, revealing white teeth interrupted by one of gold. Melissa was too surprised to cry. In fact, she thought she might be dreaming.

But Juneau lifted her lightly back to her feet. Melissa was six then, maybe seven, small for her age with too thin arms and legs. At fourteen she is almost grown, and almost as tall as Juneau. She sits beside her on the bench as Lily, tugging at the straps, strains towards Melissa, a flower reaching for the sun. Melissa slips off the straps and sets her like a small jewel upon her lap.

Juneau pulls from her pocket a wrinkled waxy paper bag, and from the bag an onion. She peels the layers, one by one. There are so many layers, too many to count. There is an egg, hard-boiled; three radishes, and thick black bread. She breaks the bread. They eat together in silence, safe and easy.

When the bread is gone, the breeze picks up. Melissa shivers. What, she wonders, does Juneau know? Melissa leans against her, listening. She sees her feet, planted, imagines roots thrusting down, holding firm. She imagines Juneau as the trunk, Melissa a branch, and Lily a leaf. Connected.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photography Detail Juneau\u2019s Trinity by Sarah Rossiter Every fine day Melissa takes Lily for a walk. Usually it\u2019s mid-afternoon by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-597","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":619,"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/597\/revisions\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo-designprojects.com\/cms\/margie-wildblood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}