Amy hit the remote a second time and the DVD started playing, lines of static twitching along the edge of the screen before the image stabilized and focused: a close-up of a white horse with a red bridle and a dark brown saddle trimmed in gold.
The horse, impaled on a yellow pole, slowly began to rise as a calliope played jaunty carnival music over low-grade speakers. Zooming out, the camera showed a second horse, and then a third, before suddenly the horses began moving, rising up and down as the merry-go-round commenced its revolution, the painted ponies spinning in succession as the camera panned right, revealing Amy, age sixteen, standing in the frame like a TV reporter, an empty Diet Coke bottle serving as the mike.
AMY: We’re here at the annual carnival for St. Theresa’s Church in beautiful downtown Manahawkin, New Jersey, where tonight, local three-year-old Sarah Carpenter will attempt to ride the notorious wooden pony Zeus for three whole minutes.
The camera tilted, and Sarah Carpenter entered the frame, her blonde curls flopping as she ran toward Amy with an ecstatic smile, a Smurfs T-shirt tucked into her blue jeans, the laces of her left sneaker precariously untied. Dropping to her knees, Amy held the Coke bottle up to Sarah’s mouth.
AMY: Tell us, Sarah, are you ready for the challenge of the mighty Zeus?
Sarah looked straight into the camera, meaning she looked straight at me, and I zoomed in for a close-up.
SARAH: You ride with me, Duck. Please.
The close-up held as Sarah, still smiling, her big green eyes eager for fun, waited for my “Yes”—of course I would ride the merry-go-round with her.
SARAH: Please!
Amy hit the Pause button, and the image froze across the screen: Sarah in close-up, her eyes imploring me to join her.
“Oh my god!” Maddie said, rolling up a napkin and tossing it at Jill. “Your Mom back then could have been your twin.”
Jill ignored her, checking over her shoulder to make sure Amy was okay. Seeing Sarah in such an extreme close-up gave me a chill, but Amy seemed amused, even peaceful, as she watched a piece of our lives play out on screen, Sarah Carpenter’s face projected in fifty-four inches of High Def. I’d had no idea this footage still existed. I remembered, right away, what it had sounded like hearing Sarah laugh.
“Last year I had those old Sony tapes transferred to DVD,” she said, then turned toward the girls. “His uncle gave him a camcorder for his sixteenth birthday, and for a while he video-taped everything. Those camcorders were expensive back then. It was a big deal. Everyone didn’t walk around with a mini-film studio on her phone.”
“That camcorder’s still in my room, I bet,” I said, for a moment forgetting that it was Nancy’s room now. “Uncle Dan keeps everything.”
On screen Amy picked up Sarah, carrying her toward the ticket line as Sarah waved, my camera hand unsteady as I hustled to keep up, the image jumpy but holding focus as the girls joined the line. The camera panned right, showing the queue of kids ahead of them, families loaded down with popcorn and cotton candy, a big stuffed animal against every other dad’s hip as they all waited in line for the merry-go-round’s next turn. The camera again held focus in a close-up of Amy and Sarah, their faces cheek to cheek, their eyes reaching out, inviting me in.
Amy paused the disc again, sipping from her mug of Chinese tea.
“Fair warning, girls; there’s another two hours of this. If you’re not in the mood for home movies, I won’t be pissed.”
Maddie looked over at her friend. “We’re not going anywhere,” Jill said, staring at her mother’s face, so young and happy on the screen. Maddie grabbed an almond cookie and settled back against the coffee table.
“This is a surprise,” I said.
Amy smiled. “I promised you a movie night, didn’t I?”
She reached across the couch and held my hand, and for a moment it felt like our lives had been recalibrated—welcome to one more night at home with my wife, my daughter, and her BFF, the family Marcino watching silly home movies and reminiscing. Later we would upload the videos to the Internet so Sarah Carpenter, out of college now, making her way in the world, could enjoy the old movies, too; she could see her former babysitters goofing around with her and recall how much she was loved.
Amy squeezed my hand as the disc resumed. There were so many images: Sarah and I sharing a wooden pony on the merry-go-round; she and Amy on the Ferris wheel while I shoot from level ground, the camera catching their feet dangling in the tilting carriage as the wheel climbed higher into the dark sky, a canvas of stars at the back of the frame. We see Sarah and Amy at the beach, building sandcastles; making cookies in the kitchen of Sarah’s house; Sarah tucked under the blankets in her bedroom as I orchestrate a puppet show with her menagerie of stuffed toys. At one point the camera is hitched to a tripod, and three of us appear together in frame: Amy cross-legged on the bed, Sarah on her lap, and me—so young, not a crease or a whisker anywhere, thick hair spilling over my forehead, a skinny kid with an eager smile, the
