Separation Anniversary
I am thinking of the tire swing. How you would push me all the way back to the concrete wall of the neighbor’s garage, how you would ask if I was ready and let go before I answered. Soaring over the garden bed and the patio, so high that I could see my own reflection in the second story window, I would screech and flail my little feet and hear you laugh behind me. After this, we’d switch roles and restart. Practically interchangeable, you and I. First cousins, but all our parents’ friends thought we were twins.
I am thinking of grape popsicles on the back porch, how we smeared them on our lips and called it lipstick and the purple dripped and splotched our favorite dresses. I am thinking of your steadfastness, three houses down the block. This was before your mother’s meltdown, before the splitting of our families. Before the lawsuit and the letters and your quiet, vacant house, there was the two of us playing fairy-spies every afternoon in the wood chip pile.
I am home and on my regular walk. I go to see it once, just once, each time I’m here. It’s still painted earthy brown with white on the window moldings. Same old front door, same scratched brass mailbox. I tiptoe down the driveway, press my chin atop the gate. Everything’s gone. The tire swing and the garden bed, the trellis with the honeysuckle vines, the wood chip pile and the patio. It’s just a giant bulldozed hole of dirt. Five years since the last time I saw you, I surprise myself by crying. After everything, somehow, it is this loss that feels most final.
