-   Scotch-taped to my mother's scrapbook is a thumb-sized lavender picture viewer, which, when you look through the eyehole and hold it up to a light, magnifies a tiny picture of her and Jacob Fish on New Year's Eve at a big hotel in the Catskills. On the outside of the viewer is printed in gold script, "Kiamesha Lake, N.Y.," and there is a small gold chain attached to it, so you can hang it somewhere or twirl it around your fingers. Inside of it, when you peer through, my mother is standing next to Jacob Fish, both done up like prom royalty, my mother in a strapless apricot dancing gown, her hair piled up on top of her head, fastened with pins and one pale rose, and Jacob Fish, short and tow-headed, just about her height, with a navy blue bow tie, a kindness and graciousness in his face, which, I can tell, made my mother happy, made her smile, timelessly holding his arm in the little lavender capsule.

- Lorrie Moore
from "What Is Seized"
Self-Help: Stories