The skin of my family is like looking deep into a rainbow on a warm spring day. It makes anyone do a double take when they take a glance at one of our few family portraits.

Dad’s is the most generic. His porcelain complexion is anything but flawless. Always bruised and masked by his salt and pepper hair, it never ages. Mom’s skin is my favorite. It vibes with freckles in the summer when the sun burns its brightest, and is always aromatic with the perfume of facial cleansers at night. Always pure and fresh, mom’s skin conceals even her darkest sorrow. Mine is a combination. With freckles popping during summer solstice, and lesioned in the most rare of places, I keep a darker tint to my skin, even in the dreariest of months.

Mason’s skin, however, is the noteworthy feature of the Madson family. A creation of two people he may never come to know, his skin protects, bringing overwhelming joy.

I only wish to have the color of skin my brother obtains. Like rich, sugary molasses in Grandma Evie’s oven, Mason’s skin is the envy of all. It’s brown surface reminds my family of where he comes from, and how he came to be. His people slaving away in the fields under the Guatemalan daylight, his Latin blood flows underneath this pigmentation. The way he loses his color in the fall and winter brings us humor as we joke of how he’s been surrounded by white people for too long. The color of him I don’t take notice to anymore, I’d have to study him to find something different.

The Madson family would be nonexistent if it weren’t for the color Mason has brought into our lives. The way he warms our hearts and illuminates our days is something of another world, just like his skin.