The Old House

She wishes she could remember his name, what he looked like. All there is to remember is how she felt around him, yet they were hardly five or six years old at the time. He spent some unspecifiable length of time impressing himself on her heart the summer he visited his grandmother – she believes it was his grandmother, anyway. Then he was gone. Or was that the year she moved? She cannot remember.

As a child she measured time by the intensity of her experiences not by something as uncreative as the measureable hours, days, weeks that have come to rule her life now. She smiles to herself as she wonders whether her penchant for tardiness is simply her child-self, asserting, "I am still here!" Indeed the days are few that she forces herself to stop daydreaming about the little house in which she spent her happy first few years.

In the neighborhood today, she impulsively decides to drive by the small house, which she does three times before recognizing the ash tree out front. Ironic, she thinks, to remember the type of tree but not the name of the boy.

For a moment, she considers walking up to find the concrete patch where her father encouraged all the neighborhood children to imprint their tiny hands. Maybe their names were still there; was he there that day? She lets her hand fall from the door handle as she remembers her mother telling her a few years ago that the now-dilapidated garage replaced the patio and handprints made so long ago.

The patio. Yes, she can remember that. And the white trellised fence that separated it from the driveway. Her old cat used to pace on top of it after tussling with the snakes in the honeysuckle shrubs. All are gone now: the honeysuckle, the snakes, the cat, the trellis, the names. She stares at the garage, and it is suddenly replaced by the trellis again. There she is, small enough to stand on the bottom of the little gate while he swings her gently. What do they talk about? She is too far away to hear, but she can once again feel the breeze on her face.

She regrets not remembering much of what she said, though to be honest, that is a trait she still shares with her younger self. Her memories are as silent as her photographs; in fact, they are photographs. As her eyes move to the front door, she sees the small wooden front porch. Violets used to bloom in the crack between the porch step and the concrete sidewalk. He would pick them and offer them to her as if offering her a slice of an apple. She never felt the need to keep them. They would spend the hot afternoons lying on the porch, side by side, knees hanging over the step, faces upturned toward the shade of the ash tree, holding his right hand in her left hand and the violets in her right. She cannot remember speaking, but she remembers being.

Sometimes, they would walk down to the backyard and sit in the shade there. The backyard was immense and full of trees. She recalls the giant cottonwood in the center of the lower portion of the yard. Her father always thought it strange that the tornado plucked the small cherry trees out of the ground but only stole a few branches from the cottonwood. She looks to the small area between her house and the neighbor's. She strains to see into the backyard, but her view is blocked by weeds reaching to the eaves of her small house. There is her old bedroom window. Central air must have been installed; the old window unit is gone. She remembers lying on her bed for afternoon naps. Her head at the foot of the bed, she would let herself become drowsy watching the roof vents turn in the wind on her neighbor's house.

She cannot see the vents now. She sees the curtain slightly move in her front window. Afraid she has stayed too long, she shifts her car into drive and slowly coasts home, remembering to say goodbye to the boy without a name.