Margaret leans in, puzzlement crosses her face and clouds the sparkle behind her spectacled eyes. She brings her latte to her lips. “Tell me that again,” she says. “I hardly remember that.”

Clair pops a date in her mouth, “You don’t remember?” Margaret thinks there might be salt in her coffee, hopes Clair doesn’t choke on the pit.

“I might if you say it again. When did this happen?”

“The eye doctor. Remember? I was 90% blind in the left eye. A worm, they said, a parasite. Every two weeks, ophthalmologist. You took me. Across the street, the mall and there was a skating rink on the top floor. You used to take me - you don’t remember? How could you not remember that?”

A skating rink…

Margaret sat back, willing herself to remember. All the damned greyness in the way.

Before their parents split, there were lessons. Swimming, piano, and skating -Margaret’s favourite of all - she fancied one day, she would be an Olympian. There wasn’t a moment she wasn’t day dreaming about skating: leaping and spinning, flips and splits…the sound of the blades cutting the ice, the quiet vastness in the open arena…

She would remember a rink at the top of the mall, wouldn’t she?

“Oh my gosh…yes, yes! It is coming back to me now! How could I have forgotten? And we had popcorn afterward? And that one time there, I saw Jeff Cross - Oh he was so hot. You remember that time, Clair?”

Now it was Clair’s turn to remember. Clair’s eyes drifted to her right ear. She always did that when she was thinking hard. She could hear the craftiness in that story, Margaret thought. Clair’s memory was sharp as glass, did she know Margaret was making her hustle?”Yes, Margaret - and I saw Greg Robbins there that day. I do remember.”

They laughed, looking back, remembering.

And this is what Margaret loved the most about not remembering: making up the past the way she wanted it to be.

“Yes! That’s right, Clair. Exactly.”

There has never been a day I loved you more than today Oh! How you have grown, changed Oh! How you will grow, change still.
I will love you yet more, Sasha. My youngest.

Yesterday you came downstairs from slumber Your eyes strained into the early afternoon light A sun-blinded bat I asked you to shovel the snow. You groaned. I love that too.

My teenager. Your own being. Enjoying the freedoms your siblings paved for you. I would be lying to say I don’t miss your younger self. …your cuddly younger self So many hugs! So many smooches! Oh! How you adored me! Now I steal hugs whenever I can get them. They are quarters on the sidewalk.

These days, I mostly find you In between the lines In the spaces Like, for example, On your walls: Covered in your drawings.
Your art. Your illustrations Of another world. A fantasy world. So exquisite. (How did you learn to do that?) In the details, I see Your depth Your heart In their eyes, I see your own Your pain Your tenderness I see you growing With every new piece. I see you when I cannot see you.

And I cannot imagine life without you Even so you mostly hide in your room Come out for video games, To go to school, And for the meager sustenance you consume (How can a growing boy eat so little?).

Every now and then…

I find myself listening to you I never expect it It just happens At the table or in the car To your ideas and theories To your passion Your voice lifts like a song - Sung in baritone - Your hands dance You pause to laugh, to seek understanding To breathe So many thoughts So many opinions Observations You, the mouse who keeps all the sun to share When it is darkest.

I savour every moment however fleeting.
Soon enough…university, I would assume. So I seek you today In the spaces Knowing my most concentrated time with you is already closed But I will take whatever I can get For as long as I live I cannot imagine my world without you.

Around every corner, a ghost In this town. Familiar, creeping, knowing Invading the unknowing mind with memory and being. It grabs hold, forcing surrender. Impossible to see a corner And not see the apparition lurking in it.

There: that afternoon, the bright sun, the patio, laughter and then… Here: a woman scuffles forward on the sidewalk, pulling her belongings in a broken-down cart; you know that woman And there again: a new mom pushes her child in a stroller toward the daycare doors…a child now grown and moved far off. Your child.

Every sight is the site of a remembrance Sparking some forgotten neural pathway. You cannot flee. Everywhere In this town of shadows With its grey-black bricks, Awnings flapping under hot air.
Its smoke stacks. Laundry lines, Yellow buses. Everywhere In this town. Here, the dry cleaner Here, the cafe The mechanic The library - it is just opening for the day!

It is a town to grow up in And eventually fold into To become Like the earth around it: soil. A phantom In someone else’s Periphery.