I wasn't there.

This week I found two cracks in the glass walls of our shower. They are hairline cracks that don’t cut through entirely. But they are unnerving. The glass shower walls tower over the tiny bathroom - they are 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide. If we had inherited the shower, I wouldn’t worry. Anything that exists will continue to exist. Houses don’t fall apart, bit by bit. But I don’t have that comfort. I watched the workmen bring the glass in - three to a pane. I know what little bits of caulk and glue hold them in place. At least, I think I do.

This week a series of photos appeared on Facebook. They are not particularly good quality - grainy, blurred shots of high school students dressed in late 80s finery, headed to a prom. They are, I know, lawyers, artists, doctors and professors of philosophy now. Then, they were eager-eyed goofballs, embracing all that brought them together in a small town, willfully ignoring what might have set them apart. It is the lawyers and professors who comment on the photos, in voices I recognize to be a melding of who they are and who they were. The voices cheer on those one-time students appreciatively, with humor and good will.

Standing in the shower I see that there are cracks in the paint on the windowsill. There should not be. This bathroom is only two years old. I worry about what I can’t see: the beams, the underpinnings of the stairs. When we changed this house, I wonder if we destabilized it.

I knew those kids at the pre-prom party. All of them. They were nearly friends. I went to that prom. I know, because there is a picture of me standing with my father on our back porch. I am wearing a pink holly hobby dress. I am smiling. So is he. But I do not remember the prom. And I did not know about the party until last week.

The irony is that I would find absolute comfort in knowing that someone else had done the construction work before we bought the house. The absence of detail would soothe me completely. I would blindly trust that our house was secure. Paint chips happen. Hairline cracks don’t mean a thing. Houses don’t just crumble underneath us when we sleep. But I met our contractor, and he was a man of shortcuts and good enough. These traits may not distinguish him from his peers. Knowing him does.

But of course, we don’t know anything. Not about each other, and not about ourselves. Our own memories are as trustworthy as a painter brought in to coat one window frame in a bathroom in a house she’ll never see again. I knew I was an outsider (an other, if you will). I knew I wasn’t there, and couldn’t be. But over time, my story didn’t seem to add up, not even to me. There were awards, after all, acceptances to college, successes. Maybe that outsider story was just the writer in me trying to stake a claim -- Writers are outsiders - They are not team captains. Splain yourself.

There is a kid in one of those photos who I desperately wanted to know better. He hung out of reach. He came to my house only once, with his friends, and we all got wired on diet coke and tried to drive to the Jersey shore. We weren’t allowed. I don’t know how he figured out I was suicidal, but he passed me a note in math class. It was before that senior prom. Or maybe it was after. I don’t remember those days, individually or in clumps. The note said, “Life is just a game, but you have to be present to win.” We’ve never discussed it.

I wonder about the power of Facebook to draw me back into that world. An interloper again, I suppose. But no longer a mystery. I never had them fooled. They knew I wasn’t there.

Maybe I was only present then like I am now, in this beautiful house worrying about the cracks in the shower glass. No. I am not. I am very here. And I know how to use a caulk gun.