“In all such photos, the baby participates unwittingly. But in this one, his conscription is grotesque, and his lack of expression nauseating to behold. The vacancy of his stare is somehow more crushing than if he were bawling, and thereby showing some awareness of his loss.
“Does he know that his parents will never come back?
“Does he know that these plastic people, grinning in his parents’ place, will hand him to relatives and never come back either?
“Does he know that one of them called people who looked like his parents “invaders,” the same word used by the killer who shot them dead at a Walmart?”