Neighbors Before We Knew It

[Places and names changed for privacy.]

In 1982, my family moved from Bridgetown to Norton, about fifteen minutes away. Our new neighbors were strikingly similar to us. While my family had four children—three girls (Mary, Carli, Reese) and one boy (me, Sean)—their family had three boys (Don, Morgan, Jacob) and one girl (Lisa). Even more curious: the third-born in each family was a boy, Jacob and me, in the same grade at school. Naturally, we became fast friends, and Jacob spent a lot of time at our house.

One day, while hanging out, we grew bored and started flipping through some of my family’s photo albums. Suddenly, Jacob gasped. He pointed to a particular photo in shock.

The picture had been taken the year before, in 1981, at a city park back in Bridgetown. It showed a slide photographed from the side so that the slide and ladder formed the shape of a giant letter A. At the top of the ladder stood my sister Mary, followed by me, then—shockingly—Don, Morgan, and Jacob.

There it was: all of us together, lined up in order on a playground slide, a full year before we became next-door neighbors.