A note about the work “Mother of Stone” from Terry Ann Thaxton for the Michigan Quarterly Review's Summer 2024 issue: 

I have a photograph of my parents standing next to each other, leaning against our station wagon on one of our numerous and regular camping trips. My father is shirtless, smiling and wearing his bucket hat. My mother is not smiling. I sensed that my parents did not like each other. They did not touch each other. I did not know until years after their deaths many of the reasons their distrust, but my childhood sense was correct. My parents loved their children, but the pretense of their happiness loomed over our lives and haunted me. It seemed to be my father’s mission to take us to every fort in Florida, including Fort Pickens and Castillo de San Marcos. My father stole a brick from Geronimo’s cell at Fort Pickens by putting it on his head under his hat, which he later used when he built the fireplace in our home. Coquina shells were used in the construction of Castillo de San Marcos. Florida sits on limestone. My mother would occasionally smile but only when my father was not present, and her smile seemed, to me, to be behind a wall of stone.