Then they were alone, him and Lorel, in the circle of firelight. She poked at the fire, her eyes downcast, her movements stiff. She felt so uncomfortable with the idea of getting to know him, she couldn’t even look in his direction. Desperate to make this work, somehow, he spoke softly: “What’s your favorite memory?” Still looking at the fire, she smiled. “That’s an easy one,” she said. “We can start with easy,” he told her. “Hard can come later, if we need it to.” She looked at him, a quick glimpse of hazel and copper, then back to the flames. Her brow creased for a moment, then smoothed. “Dunno if I can tell it well enough,” she said, “but I’ll try.” “It was the summer I turned eight,” she said. “I know because my father was driving, and he disappeared right before my ninth birthday. We were driving home from a party, a grown-up party. The kind where I could just sit in a corner and listen, and nobody tried to make me play kid games or climb on playground equipment.” “We were on a quiet stretch of country road. No houses, no cars. We were on a flat stretch that ran between two overgrown hayfields and a patch of woods. My parents probably thought I was asleep until I asked my father to stop the car.” “He came to a stop and turned around. I think he was going to ask me what I wanted, but I wasn’t there. I was on the pavement as soon as the wheels quit turning.” “’Daddy, look,’ I said when he joined me. ‘I’ve never seen so many fireflies.’” “He turned, looked, and I heard him gasp.” “Every blade of grass bore its own blinking yellow light. Tiny lanterns flashed in ancient patterns above the pasture. Thousands of flickering lights filled every tree and climbed every bush.” “I reached out and caught a winking light-a firefly like any other. It climbed to the tip of my fingers and flew away, losing itself in the ocean of living stars.” “We stood for a long time, talking in hushed voices. Even my mother found no reason to hurry away. When we finally got back in the car and left the magic behind, we didn’t see another car for miles. I’ve always wondered if we were the only people to notice the show.” “I’ve been back, that time of year, and never seen anything like it. It was easily the most beautiful, glorious, happy event of my life.”
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:19:45 +0000
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