The apple tree is in bloom. Thousands of cherry pink flowers ripple lightly in the light spring breeze. Under the tree the woman and her daughter stand next to each other.

The woman is beautiful, slender as a model except where she is swollen, deeply swollen, with child.

The daughter is holding her raggedy stuffed animal in front of her own belly.

The father is taking the picture. “Touch Mommy’s tummy,” he says. “Go on, touch it, just for a moment. For the picture.”

The little girl stands firm.

“It’s okay, honey,” the mother says. She puts her arm around the girl and eases her close. “You’re getting so big, sunshine,” she says.

“Smile,” the father says. “Come on, smile.”

But the girl and her mother remain adamantly serious, even when the man says koochie, koochie, koochie.

An apple blossom drifts down—but not in time to make it into the picture. The camera has already clicked.

“One more,” the man said. At that moment a strong breeze sways across the tree, the boughs lift and sigh, and a hundred blossoms shake loose and float down like snowflakes, landing on the mother and daughter’s hair, on their noses, everywhere. The girls laugh and laugh. Mother and daughter and daughter-to-be.