Boys leap in the waves and splash. They run, always running, tanned, sandy and lithe. I hear their shouts but lose them in the glare, sun dazzled. Could one of those be him? They’re the right age. I look around to account for the moms each belongs to. Perhaps there is an extra.
In school, he’s busy and talkative, or maybe serious and quiet. Easily distracted by daydreams and memories that never happened? I take my daughter to school, help her choose her desk, toward the front, one away from the window, next to a boy with floppy brown hair and her eyes. She insists there’s no boy next to the window. I know.
In New York, between the Park and Carnegie Hall, I’m distracted, underprepared, my feet ache. He’s not quite twenty, tall and wide-striding like his dad, who I haven’t seen in as many years, but lean like his grandfather who hasn’t looked like that in decades. He doesn’t see me. A reflection off a building, blinding, silvery, strikes and severs me from my meeting agendas, inconsequential reports, all the won and lost achievements I’ve cried over since that day I was so sure. My sidewalk tilts. He moves on, gone.
I’m sure? A boy? From the first beat, yes. Pete, possibly, or Paul. I call him my little beetle and he never gets to know why. I can’t tell him now. I keep a calculator close to tabulate the years and willfully mix them up, then fill an impossible scrapbook in my mind with his announcement and report cards, a would-be lock of soft curly hair and a photo in a tuxedo I don’t help him pick out.
Challenge: Write a ghost story.