The picture of the little girl fluttered to the floor of the brightly lit “study room” that was a converted garage of a remodeled brick townhouse in the West Village of downtown Manhattan.  The eyes that peered out of the picture were wide-set and shining, in a shade of startling deep-blue, almost violet.  She captured you with a radiating innocence.   Her dainty face, a spray of freckles dotting pinkish cheeks, was lightly-smudged by mud, and a few strands of her light brown hair had fallen across her sunburned brow just as the picture was snapped.

A burly teenager bent down to quickly swipe the picture from the floor.  He reverently wiped imagined dust from its face, as well as from the back of the photo, frowning as he did so.

The raucous group of teenagers sitting in a circle around the pensive teenager, arranged haphazardly around a low-slung coffee table in the study room, soon grew quiet as they watched him smoothen the edges of the well-worn photograph and then carefully lay it on top of the pile of thin tablets, “web 10.xx” VR and other electronic gee-gaws teenagers used for their schoolwork and social media.

Angie sat up slightly from her relaxed position on the comfortable leather couch, unbuttoned a dark-blue crushed velvet jacket done in “tuxedo style” that she wore over a simple spaghetti-strapped tank top, and then rubbed the back of the muscled back of the teenage boy affectionately.  She said softly, “Sorry, TJ. I think we just lost our heads in that argument over who should present this proposal…”

As she massaged his neck she thought, “Gosh this brother of mine is getting so big already.  Yet he clearly still needs me to look after him! And when it comes to girls, he moves about like he’s so oblivious to their stares and giggles.”

TJ and Angie were very close and had grown up protective about each other. Their closeness had been nurtured and reinforced by the cocoon of love and affection thrown over them by their moms and their moms’ network of friends. Normally responsive to his sister’s affectionate rubs and hugs, TJ didn’t respond to Angie’s gentle prodding this time.

She sat up further and impulsively gave him a tight hug from behind, “C’mon tell your sis what you’re thinking about…”

Oh, TJ!  Who’s gonna watch over you now when I leave this summer for Oxford?  You may be taller than me, look stronger than your friends, and think you’re the ”man” of the house but, really, you’re still a little boy to me.