She steps into the sunlight, a bath of yellow light
engulfing her with warmth and comfort.
Grace holds the door open a moment, a tiny bell shaking out a steady
rhythm next to her. The sidewalk in
front of her is worn but clean. Without
knowing why Grace turns to her right and takes a step, then two, her Sunday shoes
clicking quietly on cement. She feels good;
better than she’s felt in ages. A bag
bounces against her leg as she walks, she glances down at it. Yellowed with age and scuffed she doesn’t
recognize it or know why she has it. She
stops a moment, looks down again and sees hands that can’t belong to her, can
they? Slender and long but withered with
age they are the hands of her mother.
Her gaze looks past the hands that aren’t her hands and sees many little
trinkets in the bag.
Were
these toys of her youth? She remembers
playing with them, her brothers stealing them and then her finding them under
the tree in the front yard later in the afternoon. Grace smiles at the memory of days gone
by. Of course she still has them. Why wouldn’t she? She continues her walk. To her left an old street, a few pieces of
trash littered here and there. A car
parallel parked, old and brown, so much like her father’s first car. She wants to stop, are the seats as worn as
she remembers, but something calls her forward.
The street isn’t very crowded.
She finds this odd, isn’t it Saturday?
Shouldn’t it be bustling? A few
people pass her. One nearly runs into
her. Faces in the crowd, half remembered
from places she can’t recall.
To her
right, old store fronts giant glass store fronts dominating. She smiles and wanders towards them. Her steps come a little faster now. She looks at the store front of one, inside
the small suite she sees a mother and several children playing. A girl, in her teens, stands watching the
children and mother. She glances up and
Grace meets her eyes, a smile wide on the young woman’s face. The girl’s eyes give support, a reassurance
everything will be alright. The boys,
twins, with light hair, tumble and giggle with each other. Grace smiles, warmth and comfort calls her but
a nagging desire to see more pulls her forward.
Another store front greets Grace, a family at dinner. The father older, mother serving dinner out
of a bowl, eager children waiting and babbling.
Grace wants to stay and watch, the man, grinning, is so familiar to her.
She wants to call out, to have them see
her. She reaches towards them, opens her
mouth to speak and finds her voice mute.
She keeps walking instead, the pull even greater to reach where the
sidewalk ends.
Ends?
As she continues her walk she sees a
yellow car, engine idling deeply, sleek and swift looking, a woman in uniform
smiling and waving. At her? Maybe? The girl looks familiar, older than Grace
remembers somehow. Grace struggles to
place the woman but waves back. She
keeps walking. A last window pane on her
right but a crack in the cement catches a heel.
Grace trips and pitches forward. Her
left hand reaching out, skinning her palm, pain shoots through it. She holds desperately to the bag but it tears
and the contents spew onto the concrete.
She looks up once quickly and sees a Christmas vignette framed in the
window of another store front, frozen in time, a rock fireplace, a tree, and children
babbling, grinning, and giggling around a stack of brightly wrapped presents. They remind her of people she should know but
can’t recall. So many children watched
by adults who all look up at her and smile almost sadly at her. They are all there, but who are they? She smiles at the joy she sees. She can almost remember…what?
A pain
interrupts her viewing. She looks down
and sees a scrapped knee. The sound of
that little hanging bell comes back to her now.
She tries to look behind her, has some one left the store? Why can she hear the bell? A shadow falls over her. The ringing bell slows. She looks up and sees him and smiles with
relief. It’s been so long and she’s been
so lonely. Their eyes meet, an odd ballcap
perched with bill up, showing off his forehead.
She laughs. He smiles and her
heart flutters. The ringing bell slows
even more. He reaches a hand down to
help her to her feet.
“Hello
Grace,” he says, his voice rich.
“I
missed you,” she replies.
“I’ve
missed you too but we have to go now.”
Something
tells her she doesn’t want to but he’s there and she’s missed him. “I know.”
She
stands, the world swoons a moment but he’s there like she always imagined him
to be and he helps her forward. They
walk towards where the sidewalk ends.
They approach the end and slow their walk. She looks at him, he smiles down at her. The bell slows, stops and then rings one
final long ring. Grace’s vision blurs,
he hugs her.
“Ready?”
Yes. Very ready.
The bell silences, the world swims and all that’s left is he and her,
now and forever.
