In my dream last night, my partner and I pulled up in the drive of my grandparents' home. The door of the van slid open and my grandfather leaned in, filling the open window, the sleeves of his white tee flipped up like he could still be a greaser. Anything but fresh from working in the garage all day. He smiled at my partner, who he never met. I reached out and touched him for the first time in six years.
We left the car and strolled past the tree he had planted in the front yard, now no taller than the van, not yet needing to be trussed up and pinned back. Inside, the house was just the way he built it, untouched by the impending millennium renovation. I didn't mind the mustard velvet and lime green, the grooved wooden walls that were rough as bark. I was almost breathless, catching glimpses of my mom, young and bright and sparking: at her best, contagious.
We pushed deeper into the house, down the hall and towards the bedrooms where my sister and I slept. A door flew open and I sped out, my eyes as bright as my mother's: seven years old, perhaps. The smallest in my class. My partner smiled – I didn't have to tell him who she was – but I faltered. Me, not her, who disappeared around the corner, lost in a game.
I backed into the bedroom, tears blurring a place I didn't know was still here, always here. Realizing too many years later that no one could protect her like me. Waking up still crying, my fingers alight with my grandfather's shirt, the cotton worn soft and thin like he would wear that thing forever.
