When we moved into the developing suburban neighborhood in Arlington, it was very new. Before the little boy-next-door had moved into the not-yet-built house next to our two-story home on Smallwood Drive, the field was just a field. I have no memories of it until the earth had been overturned by construction workers. 

 

Rain made this space into a thick pool of mud.

 

Mom grabbed some of my brother’s old clothes (mine were too pretty) to dress us in and we swam through the thick gummy earth, growled bearing our muddy paws, and slopped dripping balls of mud onto each other’s heads and backs until our blond hair was caked with black mud. 

 

If I sat at my vanity to draw, ignoring its gravely black-and-white texture poking through my paper, I could just see the construction workers laying the foundation for the new house unaware of me and my brother's christening in the unclaimed space not long before. There’s a picture of my brother, his face tensed and teeth bared in a fierce growl and his muddy paws ready to claw at me or mom at a moment’s notice. Behind him there is nothing. Only more mud. It’s hard to believe that we were living in a suburb so defined by its proximity to nearby cities that it’s known as Dallas/Ft. Worth.