In this giant room, encased behind the back-lit memorials of the walls, are the minds of the greatest people to walk this planet.

When people visit this “museum” of sorts, they can, for a nominal price, select any of the minds to tap into and watch the memories of that person play out, like a live-action movie.

They get a front-row view of it all: What these people saw, how they experienced it, their thoughts as they went through these memories, how they reasoned through these events and used them to create or accomplish whatever great feat they are known for.

The price to enter the museum and simply be in the presence of these memories is steep; to access just one memory collection is an additional fee, and the fee increases depending on which person’s memory the visitor wants to access.

The further back into the museum the visitor travels, the more expensive the memories.

Two struggling parents decide, from the moment they find out they are expecting, to save as much money as they can so they can take their child to this museum.

The dad decides to place their savings in the market, and when the stock booms, he pulls out and they have just enough to access the museum and one of the elite memories of their choosing.

They decide to do this for their child so that their child may internalize the mindset, the thoughts, the experiences of the great person, so that child may in turn be great themselves.

This will allow the child to break generations of poverty and bad luck.

But, the mind they access has some shocking surprises.

And the family finds out, that not every great person is innocent.

And that the world is much, much smaller than it appears.

Do they end up inadvertently causing more harm than good to their child, and to themselves, by living these “memories”?

“I love you Arlene!” He shouts, his voice breaking. The words rise to the vaulted ceilings and dance around the ornate, gray walls. Arlene stands, a mere five feet from him, arms crossed over her chest. She regards him with a reserved look of bemusement. “Dammit!” His hands clench in tight fights, falling to his waist, helpless. His voice catches and one hand flies up to his face, wiping quickly at the sudden wetness on his cheeks. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you see anything?” Arlene’s lips twist in a pucker, but she says nothing. Jack trembles as the words hang between them. Shadows fall over their faces as the sun sinks lower in the sky beyond the cathedral windows. “I have always loved you, from the start. From the moment you walked in on that very first day, twenty years ago, to this very moment. Arlene. My love never stopped. It never did. But I need to know. After all this time, I just need to know.” His voice cracks as his chest heaves, accentuating the muscles under his shirt. Sleeves folded to his elbows. His fists remain, but his fingers relax. His eyes are pleading with her. Arlene crosses a leg over the other, staring at him. She feels something give in her chest, but she pushes the sensation away. Her eyes flicker to the dark, hardwood floors and then return to his. “It was never about love,” she softly intones. The words are barely above a whisper. They shoot like pristine bullets, right into the center of Jack. “Then what was it about?” His voice is just a whisper. Arlene’s eyes drop as she shakes her head. She searches in her mind for an answer, finding none. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she finally says. She shrugs as she meets his waiting gaze. “Oh?” He leans back, his arms now crossing over his chest. “You don’t know what to tell me? After all these years. I get nothing?” Arlene looks away again, her arms tightening. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she snaps at him. “It wasn’t about love for me, Jack. It never was. You knew that. You knew I didn’t want you as a romantic interest. You knew our friendship was just that. I don’t know what you want from me. I can’t give you what you want.” Jack shakes his head slowly, his mouth ajar. His gaze turns cold and steely. “I…I can’t believe you.” His voice soft and weak. All the bravado has left him and he suddenly feels exhausted. Arlene throws her arms up. “Then I don’t know what to say to you.” “After all this time…” his words trail off. Suddenly, he’s at a complete loss for words. “Jack. I really think you should focus on finding someone else.” Arlene regards him cooly one last time. She turns on her heels and stalks out of the room, swinging the large wooden door open. She doesn’t pull it closed behind her. Jack hears her heels clicking on the wooden floor, then down the stone steps, and eventually, out of the building. Jack’s chest deflates as all the air he realized he was holding releases. He notices an ache, deep and longing and sorrowful, somewhere inside his chest that he can’t reach. His head hangs low. As the sound of Arlene’s steps disappears, he moves towards the window. He leans over just so he can peer out enough to watch her. And there she is. Moving resolutely down the street. He watches her pull the door open to her car that’s parked along the side of the road and slide in. She closes the door, hesitating before the car comes to life. Jack sees her pull off, and as she drives past the building, he catches her wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

The gentle lapping of the waves against the early-morning beach sings to me like a mother sings a lullaby to her coveted baby. I sway my head side to side, snap my fingers, and smile along to the tune. The wind whips at my hair and my lips taste of sea salt. Brine and the scent of sea creatures fills my senses, the warmth of the rising sun confirming all the promises of a new day. I look around at the secluded and empty beach. The wide floor-to-ceiling windows of my neighbors’ homes drink in the South Carolina coast much how I savor my morning lattes - something I get to do when I finish my morning stroll. The light of the sun reflects off the windows, making it impossible to see inside, but I toss up my arm in a friendly wave nonetheless. I know at least a few are up, appreciating the view as much as me. They see me walk every morning and in the summer, sometimes, they delight me in their presence by sipping their coffees and reading their papers on their large back decks. I love it here. A place sealed in perfection because the public can’t get to it. Like the public beaches of Charleston; so much trash, clamor, and drama. Here, just a mere ten miles from the city, we have so much peace and exclusivity. In order to live here, one has to earn it. I reach the lone wooden post that signals my turning point, the sea water digging a little hole by the base as it slaps at the soft wood. I smile down at the post, wondering how much longer it’ll be before the ocean claims it and washes it ashore. I picture the post coming aground on some beach, maybe in the Long Island Sound or the coast of Washington State; maybe even some villa on the Red Sea! The book, Oh The Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss pops in my head. Laughing to myself, I turn around, instantly noticing something glinting in the distance. I squint my eyes, barely making out what it could be. I can tell from my point that it’s most certainly an object right at the water line, but I can’t see what. I begin to head towards it, my thoughts now consumed in a guessing game of what this object can be. I toss ideas back and forth - a watercraft that’s gone ashore, a sunken car now re-surfaced, maybe even a beached dolphin! I’ve heard of that last one happening around here but have yet to experience it myself. Maybe today is my lucky day. I begin to hear what sounds like faint piano music, carried to my ears on the soft beach breeze. I strain to make sure what I’m really hearing is music, but the wind whistles in my ear. It’s hard to discern what’s nature and what’s man. I scan the back decks of my neighbors, but no one is outside, and I see no indication that any of them have turned on their entertainment systems. Puzzled, I lean my ears forward and quicken my pace. Definitly piano music. My pace increases to a light jog, the item glistening as the piano cadences grow louder and louder. My eyes continue to squint to make out the object, and I think I can see that it is, in fact, a piano. A piano that’s planted in the beach right in the back of my house. And the closer I get, the more I see the swinging, white-haired head of a man, fingers dancing around the keys with passion, eyes closed as he sways to the music. The chords begin to make sense, and I recognize Aquilo’s The Road Less Wandered coming from the man’s fingers. I slow to a stop once I am at the piano, which is the same exact hue of the ocean and the beach sand. The engravings that grace the piano are divine and extraordinary in their beauty; definitly a musical instrument that deserves a place somewhere like Buckingham Palace or The Grand Ol’ Oprey. I wonder how this man managed to drag such a beautiful piano out to the beach like this. I plant my hands on my hips, the music winding its way through my soul. My tension begins to slip away, a steady calm taking its place. I close my eyes, feeling my body give in to the graceful notes. “You like that, huh?” The deep and smooth baritone of the man’s voice startles me back. My eyes snap open and I see the man, still swaying to the music, but his eyes are open this time, watching me. His face is in a deep and warm smile, the kind that your favorite uncle gives you when he walks in through the door on Thanksgiving. My jaw opens, but my mind draws a blank. No words come to mind nor hang on my tongue. The man chuckles, his voice rumbling low waves of bass. “That’s alright, just feel the music my friend. Feel the music.” His fingers appear to press the keys harder, his soul guiding them across the ivory keys. The salt on the breeze brings tears forth from my eyes, and I blink rapidly, realizing I hadn’t blinked since he spoke. I close my mouth and straighten my posture. “H-h-how?” I finally stammer out. The man continues on playing. Another chuckle. “That is quite the mystery, isnt it?” His eyes meet mine, both knowing and warm in their startling depth. I instantly feel like I know this man, but I also know for an absolute fact I have never seen him before. “This thing,” I begin, my mind racing to come up with logical conclusions, “must weigh at least a thousand pounds. How on earth did you get it out on a beach?” I scan the dunes and see no tracks or any other signs of a piano being dragged out to the ocean side. Plus, there’s no public access whatsoever to this beach. The road that leads in to the neighborhood is gated off at its access point at the main road; anyone entering needs a special card to get in, including guests. The music swells around us, engrossing me in a stunning symphony of high notes. “Is that what you’re worried about?” His smile hasn’t changed nor dropped, and he continues dancing to his own tune. Heat snakes up from my neck to my face, my heart picking up pace in my chest. “Can’t you just tell me what you’re doing here instead of asking me questions?” My voice is a demanding and authoritative bark. “This is a private beach. This entire street, is private. I didn’t invite you here. You don’t have a card. If you’re someone else’s guest, why are you in _my _beach?” I cross my arms tightly over my chest, drawing a stern and hard face. I stare down into his eyes. I’ve decided that should he respond with another question, I’m not going to answer. After all, I’m not the one trespassing here. He chuckles, and suddenly his chuckle morphs into a boisterous roar. His voice grows deeper and deeper, the bass rolling so loud it drowns out the music. Which, by the way, he’s still playing. And then, he presses the final key, the last note drifting into the sky like a balloon released by an unknowing toddler. He smiles widely down at his fingers, which leave the keys and comes to rest in his lap. He’s wearing dark gray corduroy pants and black loafers, with a matching gray wool sweater and the white collar of a pressed shirt poking out of the neck of the sweater. A bright gold watch flashes on his dark wrist. His laughter dies down, but his smile remains. His kind eyes continue to hold mine, and then he drops a foot into the sand. He leans forward on his matching piano bench. “Ryan, I’m here to save you.” His tone is oddly soothingly. My head knocks back as my face scrunches up. “What?” He nods, patiently. “Yes. You see, you’re dead right now.” He hooks a thumb back up towards my house. “You got about thirty minutes before it’s all over.” I stand there for a second, my mind arrested in disbelief. And then suddenly, I’m the one laughing. Doubled over, hands on my thighs, laughing. Tears start to slide out of the corners of my eyes, and I open them, looking to see the man who’s no longer smiling, his face hard. I feel steel fingers close tightly in my chest, and my laughter dies. “Okay, that was entertaining.” I straighten up, wiping tears from my cheeks. “But what’s really going on here? Please. Don’t make me call the police.” An amused “huh” leaves his mouth as he looks off to the water. “They’re already here, Ryan. They’re here because of you.” That’s it. This guy must be crazy. Somehow, someway, a crazy guy landed on my beach with a piano. Don’t ask me how. But clearly that’s what’s happened. “Alright, then,” I say, turning my body towards my house but still facing him, my palms held out in front of me. “I’m going to head back inside and call the police. Okay? I think you need some help. I can’t help you.” He stands then, his hands sliding with ease into the pockets of his corduroys. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, my heart quickening and palms clammy. I need to get into my house without this guy crashing in behind me. If he does that, I’m done for. I start taking a few more steps back, palms higher up in front of my face. The man leans back. “Don’t do that, Ryan,” he says. He takes his left hand from his pocket and gestures me to approach him. He pats the piano bench next to him. “Let me explain everything to you. Trust me. You don’t want to go into that house.” I’m frozen in place, wondering if there’s any way in hell this guy can be trusted. I weigh my options - I can sit next to him on this bench and get killed and thrown into the waves, with my neighbor’s camera maybe catching the whole thing. Or I can make a run for it back into my house, lock the door behind me (but he can certainly still crash in through the glass which makes up the entire back wall of my house) and try to call 911 and have no camera witness it. Since I turn my cameras off whenever I’m home. The man swings his head towards the piano bench, hand returned to his pocket, and smiles a sad, wary smile at me. My heart gives. My foot lifts from the sand, and I pivot, dashing as fast as I can towards the house. My arms pump at my sides, my lungs burn with effort, the steps leading up to my back deck coming coming closer, closer…closer…closer…….. The air is sucked completely out of me as I fly backwards. I lift up and through the air, the world around me turning black as a dull “hoompf” leaves my lips. I soar backwards, arms and legs outstretched like Super Man, but I am nothing like Super Man. I am Super Murder Victim. I land hard on the bench, my tailbone taking the sudden shock and sending it up my spinal cord, where it rattles my head. My eyes blink, the gritty and stingy sensation letting me know that somewhere during this ride, sand got into my eyes. I feel a thud on the bench next to me as my murderer takes a seat beside me. He lets his breath out in exasperation, his head hung low, shaking. “I was really trying to not have to do that. But I needed to get you back here, or it really _would _have been too late.” Head still hanging low, he casts his eyes over at me. “You ready to listen now?” I place a hand on the edge of the bench, leaning forward, chest heaving. He knows what I’m thinking of doing. “Please don’t try to run off again,” he tells me, disappointment heavy in his words. “I’m only going to save you one more time, and then if you do it again, I will just let you have it.” “Have what?” I blurt out. “Look, if you’re going to kill me, or rob me, or whatever, just do it. What is all this? Some torture game?” He chuckles again but there’s no joy in the laughter. “Kill you? Ryan, you’re already dead. This is what I need to explain to you. And we are running out of time. I can only hold them for so long.” “Hold who? Your heist members?” “No.” He turns to face me, arms on his legs. “Ryan, I am going to put it simply for you, okay?” He watches me for a beat. I just stare at him. I have no other choice at this point. His chest rises as he sucks in a deep breath of air. “Ryan, you are dead.” He lets the words hang in the space before us. They mean nothing to me; I already figured I was dead the second I saw this man laughing at me on the beach while playing a happy tune on a piano. “And I know what you’re thinking. You’re not metaphorically dead, like you think you are. You are actually dead. The fire department is in there right now, working on you.” He points back up my house. From where we sit, there’s zero view of the street or what’s going on in front of the house. “Your alarm system picked up a fall, and it sent an automatic tone to the dispatch center. Since it was a general alarm, they sent a full response to you. Police, fire, ambulance, the whole nine yards. They found you lying there, no pulse, no air in your lungs, and they started pumping on your chest.” He leans in so his eyes are locked deep into mine. “They started trying to bring you back to life.” I have no words. I am convinced this man is crazy. He leans back to his original position. “I know you don’t believe me. I know you don’t believe in much.” He laughs. “Besides money, of course.” His tone returns to its serious and somber note. “Let me show you what’s going on inside your house right now.” The man waves his fingers over the keys of the piano, and they blur and shimmer, turning into a vivid view of the inside of my house. My breath catches in my throat, my heart a hummingbird in my chest. My head tightens. Lying in the center of the living room, wearing the joggers and t-shirt I had put on this morning for my walk, is me. I am lying on my back, arms and legs splayed out to the sides of me over the rich aquatic carpet. Leaning over me are a bunch of rescue workers. There’s a tube sticking out of my mouth, where one is leaning above my head with a bag-mask device, no doubt breathing for me. Another hovers, frozen over my bare chest, his hands clasped one over the other, working steadily to beat my heart for me. Another sits by a heart monitor, staring intently at it, the white pads on my chest transmitting some sort of information back to the monitor. Another is by my right leg, the knee bent up, with something that looks like a drill in his hand. Another stands right behind him, some red box lying open beside him with what looks like a ton of medication waiting. Three police officers stand with their heads huddled together behind the workers. They’re all frozen in their positions, like a movie with the “pause” button pressed. “I held them up,” the man continues. “Because I needed to give you this time to understand what’s going on here.” He searches my eyes, but I am transfixed on the frozen screen before me. “You see, Ryan, I am your lead Spirit Guide,” he bellows. I blink and look back over to him. My right hand searches my chest, looking for my heart, looking for anything concrete that tells me this is just a dream. But there’s nothing there. An unsettling weight falls over me. “I know you don’t believe in anything religious or spiritual. I know that because I have been with you since the minute you were conceived.” He stares at me, my eyes sliding to meet his. He continues. “I have been with you ever since, Ryan. From the moment your heart took shape in your chest and beat for the first time. To when you came screaming from your mother’s womb. To when you took your first step, kissed your first girlfriend, graduated from high school. When you struggled in poverty, when you took control of your business and elevated yourself here.” His face hardens, his eyes twinkling. His tone softens. “To when you abaonded your daughter and left her mother wrecked.” I feel a stone drop deep in my stomach. “To when you ousted your business partner, and took everything you stole and hid it behind electrified iron gates. Because deep down, you know. You know what’s not yours eventually returns to who it’s meant for.” My mouth opens, but this man already knows what I am saying before I can say it. He’s in my head. “Ryan, I am your lead Spirit Guide and you have ignored me and the rest of our team.” He is stern with me, a father to an obstinate high schooler who refuses to do his homework. “God wanted to call you back home. He has a greater plan for you, He wants to save your soul, but you wouldn’t listen to anyone while in your earthly body. So, He called you back so he can start fresh with you. “But, I saw promise in you, Ryan. There’s still something there, something in you that can redeem you here, today. I begged and pleaded for the Lord to give me the chance to turn you around. _To speak to you. _You can do great things on this earth, Ryan, but you have to let me help you do them.” A puff of air leaves my mouth. I watch as waves ripple through the image of my living room. The man, catching me watching the shuddering image, speaks again. “The pause I put on the world is running out. When that happens, they will resume their work. Time will resume again, and you’ll have thirty minutes, Ryan. Thirty minutes before that guy over there-“ he points to the man standing by the open red box, “-declares a time, and that time will be your official Time of Death. You’ll be out of options in this life. It will be over for you. God will have you meet with Him so together the two of you can figure out what went wrong, and then you’ll get sent back into the womb of a new expectant mother to try to make a real lasting impact on this world, all over again.” “There’s no way,” I blurt, the words escaping without my control. “I am thirty-three. I have nothing wrong with me. I was on my walk this morning. I was walking. There’s no way.” I suddenly feel out of breath and unable to suck enough air in to keep up with my rising emotions. “You have a pulmonary emobolism,” the man explains patiently, his eyes closing. “It’s a clot in your lungs. They are very fatal, especially in the younger population where they come on suddenly. If we don’t come up with a plan now, you won’t be coming out of this alive.” His eyes open and stare right into mine. The image before me grows wavier and wavier. The men in the picture are starting to move. Slowly, in jerking motions, and then more faster and smoother. The one over my leg presses the drill to my shin. The one over my chest starts pumping up and down, rhythmically. The one by the heart monitor bobs his head in time to the compressions. The one at the tube by my mouth presses the bag together, my chest puffing quickly. “Wh-wh-what do I have to do?” My words are a whisper. The man, my Spirit Guide, smiles. “Make amends.” He watches me, but he already knows. I have no idea what what means. “And genuinely want to.” He straightens up, placing a hand on my back. “As long as God knows you’re sincere, He will let them bring you back.” He nods down at the image. I swallow. I watch as the group, in real time now, work diligently to keep my body, my brain, alive. Are they doing it because it’s their job to do this, or do they really and honestly care? Care. That word sticks in my mind, reverberating through my being. Care. Is that something _I _ever did? The man’s hand squeezes my shoulder. Pictures of Emma flash in my eyes. Emma, smiling up at me while I hovered above her, taking advantage of her, taking her consent under the guise of love. Emma, a few short months later, round with pregnancy, bright and radiant. Exuberant, because she was so excited to share in raising her child with me. Emma. Emptied, destroyed, wrecked, Emma. And then I see Tony. His joyful, round face, with his characteristic smile that lit up entire rooms, front and center before me. Tony. My most loyal, creative friend from kindergarten. Tony, the one who was pissing himself in excitement because he came up with the best business idea. He just knew this would take us all the way to the top. Tony, tears streaming down that chubby face, set in stone and chiseled in anger, wrought with betrayal. Tony, out of place swimming in a stiff black suit in the lawyer’s office, watching everything he poured his heart and soul in disappear right before him. Tony, who couldn’t afford a lawyer brash enough to beat down mine, silently giving up in the way that he stood, slowly, staring down at me, and then wordlessly turning and stalking out of the office. And then my parents, who stood together, silently holding the check I had placed into their hands once I had beat Tony out of the business. I used the win to retire them, and they stood stiffly before me, their faces frozen with shock. My mother’s fingers trembled as she held the small rectangular paper which held the magnitude to change their lives forever. And I see the tears she must have cried when I stopped taking her calls shortly after. I hear in my ears the desperation and pleading in her tone as she left voicemail after voicemail, begging me to come home and help her with Dad, because she couldn’t do _this _alone. I hear my own voice, cold and calculating, as I tell her, “Just use the money and hire whatever you need to help with Dad!” As I slam down the receiver, annoyed and irritated that she took time away from me following up on clients and new leads. I was irritated with her because time is money, and she took money away from me with her incessant calls. My mother, her cries like steel wool scratching me from the voice message, repeating over and over that what she needed was her _son, _her husband, not money and not some stranger. God knows, Dad had plenty of strangers surrounding him in that time. My thoughts continue to whir and spiral, my chest cold stone and my being, my soul, falling away from me. The man pats my back, smiling gently over at me. He motions with his head for me to watch the scene on the piano. The man by the monitor is clapping. They’ve restored a heart beat in my empty chest. The others are scrambling to get me on a backboard, hoisting me to the waiting stretcher and sprinting to get me into the parked ambulance standing in my driveway. And less than a minute later, they’re gone, screaming down the street to the nearest hospital. The man smiles at me as the world around me grows fuzzy and distant. His warm, assured smile is the last thing I see.

The landscapers arrive in three big, shiny white pickup trucks pulling trailers laden with all sorts of lawn equipment. The “FOR SALE” sign swings lazily, a haphazard red “SOLD” taped across. Mowers, weed whackers, garbage cans, and a ton of other stuff I can’t put a name to rattle and shake as the brigade parks by the curb in front of my grandmother’s home. It’s a chilly June morning, the sun making its slow ascent up the sky, the temperatures in the mid-sixties. I stand by the front door, arms crossed in a big, loose blue cardigan, waiting for them. I had hoped they wouldn’t show up. Yet here they are, dutiful and punctual. Never one to miss an appointment or the opportunity to get paid, I suppose. The head landscaper (I assume) hops out of the passenger seat of the first pickup, wearing a faded dusty red ball cap. His leathered, tan skin stretched over arms that has carried hundreds of mulch bags and a face with a smile fine-tuned to winning over clients. He’s one of the best, my mother said in reassuring tones, _he will make sure everything is done right. _My muscles tense as her clipped words ring through my mind, like tin pots falling to a stone floor. The man approaches confidently, his face split in half with a smile and a hand outstretched, hanging in the air. I squeeze my arms before stiffly meeting his. He eagerly crushes my hand and pumps my arm up and down. “The name’s Ron, great to meet you!” My lips tighten. “Mary.” “It’s a pleasure, Mary.” He releases my hand, which drops to my side, and he nods his head to the house. “Are we starting out back?” I cross my arms tight over my chest again. I nod. His eyes glow and his cheeks turn round as fresh blossomed apples. “Alright then, we will get to it. Give us two hours and we’ll be out of your hair!” Two hours. I suppose that’s what it takes to dismantle the remains of deepest love’s physical expression. Ron darts away to the back of the house and I watch as his crew begins loading up equipment on their shoulders and pushing the mowers up the small hill. One crew stays in the front yard with a mower and weed eater, carefully unscrewing gas caps and filling the tanks to the brim. Their breath leaves their mouths in thin puffs as they work to start the equipment and level the two-foot-tall weed field my grandmother’s yard has become. My mind goes blank as I watch, tall weeds falling to the ground beneath motorized scythes. Men’s laughter wafts up as they share in stories and inside jokes I’ll never know. Jokes the weeds carry to their graves. My fingers curl into numb fists as I turn to head to the back of the house. The sickly sweet and bitter smell of fresh cut grass hits my nose as chilly air pushes into my face. I bump the worn fence door open, my feet balancing on uneven stone pavers that lead the way to the back. The petals of roses, lavenders, and daisies glisten with early morning dew and sway in a lazy breeze. The pink, purple, and bright yellow petals face the sun, eager for morning rays to nourish them. Little thorns stick out on the stems of the roses, thorns that once drew blood on my soft, childhood skin for years. My grandmother’s chuckle echoes in my ears. When will she learn she can’t play with roses? My grandfather’s soft chuckle in return as he places his cigar pipe on the garden table and picks up the newspaper. The gentle rustle of the pages when he flips open the paper and I sit in the grass, crying over a pricked thumb. My grandmother, kneeling tenderly before me, a smell of coffee, peonies, and pie, stretching a bandaid across the cut. Ron walks resolutely across the yard with a big, heavy pair of shears in his hands. The blades alone are at least three feet long. His partner parks a metal wheelbarrow that’s marked with stiff mud by the edge of the floral garden. His weedeaters and mower sit beside the wheelbarrow, waiting. Ron makes a remark, something about how the flowers need to be tended to before he can start the mower. The thick stems or the weeds or whatever could choke the mower. If the mower is choked, it’ll break. A monetary figure of a couple thousand dollars flashes briefly in my eyes. I’m sure replacing a choked mower would be an absolute tragedy for Ron. Ron points around the yard and garden to me, but I don’t see him. I walk up to the edge of the flowerbed and kneel down beside the roses. Tears gather at the edges of my eyelids, threatening to spill. I sniffle and reach my hand out to the pink petals. My fingertips brush against velvet and cool dew. The rose dances at my touch. The stem is thick and the base is obscured in wild, tangled weeds. I stare in amazement at the garden that still came into bloom after two years of neglect. From the corner of my eye I catch Ron walking over to the far side of the garden. He’s stooped low, shoulders rhythmic in work as he moves the shears through the thicket. His partner is right behind, flattening weeds with the whacker. The distant hum of the motor pulls my eyes towards them, and I watch as one by one, roses fall to the earth. Ron tosses them into the wheelbarrow behind him without looking up. I stand and make my way to the rusted, green garden table with its two matching chairs, positioned to face the garden and rising sun. I sit at the chair my grandmother frequented, looking over at the other that my grandfather left empty more than ten years ago. He bought these roses for her. Decades ago. She was eighty-six at her passing, and he had purchased her first rose seventy-one years prior.
When they first met, my grandmother was a fifteen-year-old school girl, balancing books on spindle legs that wobbled in stout heeled uniform shoes. He was a rowdy seventeen-year-old senior on the school football team. He would tell this story with bemusement and self-indulgence; all the cheerleaders on the squad wanted him. But, grandma wasn’t on the cheer squad. She wasn’t even on the bleachers. She was the girl walking hurriedly down the hall, pushing giant glasses up the bridge of her nose because she couldn’t be late to trigonometry. It was her mystery that pulled him in. He was puzzled she wasn’t obsessing over him (or any other boy on the football team, for that matter). He was so used to female attention, and this stick figure of a girl wasn’t giving him any. _I wasn’t interested in boys. _The word “boys” would drop from Grandma’s mouth like a toxic paperweight. That doesn’t matter to a boy interested in girls though. It was this disinterest that let Grandma to miss all the signs. Grandpa would time his movements so that he was standing right there by the classroom door at dismissal. However, Grandma would brush by him, sometimes giving him a shy smile, other times not seeing him at all. She would either rush to the library, the lunchroom, or down the street back home. I remember squealing at the story. Whyyyyy? Grandma, smoothing my hair down. I was maybe seven when they first told me the story. I wanted to study and be smart. I had bigger things in mind. Grandpa rolled his eyes and giggles erupted out of me. Grandpa eventually figured out that if he wanted Grandma’s attention, he was simply going to have to walk up and grab it. So, he visited the flower shop, bought a single rose for a nickel, and marched back to the school. He knew she was about to get out of trigonometry class, never mind that he skipped grammar in order to get this flower. And there he stood, in the center of the hallway, holding up the rose with a smile. The tin bell rang in the halls and the door was pushed open by excited and hurried teenagers. Most of the girls noticed the handsome, young athlete standing there with a single rose, taunting him and flirting, trying to get the rose to be theirs. He ignored them, his eyes and smile set straight ahead. The muscles on his face automatically pulled upward, his eyes shining and expectant. Grandma emerged, head bowed, fingers pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, thick books jumbled in her arms. The crowd of disappointed girls thinned and Grandma almost bumped into Grandpa. She wasn’t used to him being right there in the center of the hallway. Usually he was on the side, out of sight and out of mind. She stopped short and looked up at him, seeing the broad smile and the beautiful rose, with its white petals winged in coral. “Beatrice,” he drawled, “will you go out with me?” He extended the rose. Grandma was hesitant. She had never been asked out by a boy before. The corners of her mouth turned down and her face scrunched. Her eyes searched his. “Sh-sure,” she stammers. The books in her arms shuffled into the left elbow, and her stiff and awkward rigth hand extended, accepting the rose. Grandpa’s heart was dancing, butterflies doing somersaults exuberantly in his stomach. He gave her a single nod. “Great. I’ll pick you up at 8.” They stood there for a moment longer, Grandma’s lips curling upward, her cheeks reddening. They married when she was eighteen and he was being pulled into a furious and deadly war. Their wedding was a small and cheap one, the couple neither having money nor means to pull off a grand affair. Nor did they have the time. They signed their love into law before a handful of parents, cousins, and siblings and spent a day in honeymoon together before Grandpa was shipped off to war. The morning of his departure, grandma woke, the aroma of fresh coffee wafting steadily into the bedroom. She was alone in bed. She threw on a robe and padded curiously to the kitchen. Fresh steaming mugs of coffee were placed on the wooden kitchen table with a square of paper in the center. An arrow had been penciled on the paper, pointing to the backdoor. Curiously she moved, her feet a meer whisper on the cold tiles. She pushed the door open, craning her neck around the frame. Wild birds sang sweetly in the warm air. Fresh dug earth lay in brown heaps in the garden before her, the smell of dirt filling her face. In the center of the soft brown soil stood three small rose bushes. A gasp escaped her lips, and Grandma, clutching her robe across her chest, hurried out the door where she knelt beside the bushes. Her face glowed, tender young fingers brushing over bright green tight buds of roses that wouldn’t bloom for a few more months. “So you won’t ever forget about me.” The voice was sudden and unexpected. Grandma whirled around to see Grandma smiling down at her from the back door, mug of coffee raised to his lips. His brown eyes sparkled as he watched her. The other mug was waiting in his hand for her to take. Grandma’s breath quickened, her hands dropping from the bushes and forgetting the rob. Her cheeks ached from her smile. She rushed to Grandpa, throwing her arms around his neck in a warm and tight embrace. He looped his arms around her back, kissing tears from her cheeks. He backed up in to the house, placed the mugs on the table, and led her to the bedroom. He wouldn’t return for over two years. When he did, he came back to a flowing garden of fragrant pinks, purples, and reds, and Grandma, who waited by with two mugs of steaming coffee. That very garden saw them through years of life and love, through eight children and six grandchildren. Through the death of family, the celebrations of life, the changing world and the twenty-first century. Through sickness and health, and through my grandmother’s long and lonely eight years as a widow. When grandpa had passed, she had picked a single rose, petals white and dusted at the tips with magenta, laying it over his tired hands clasped across his chest. She continued to tend the roses when she returned from the funeral. When grandma passed, no one had been by the garden to send her off with a rose. Not a single one. And for two years following her death, not a single person hadcared for the yard, or the house, or the flowers, whom continued to bloom patiently every spring. An ache settles in my soul as Ron efficiently tosses rose after rose into the wheelbarrow. He’s almost done now, the rectangle of earth that held this garden for well over half a century feeling the full rays of the sun for the first time. My chest grows heavy. Why didn’t I come out here more? Why didn’t I take care of Grandma’s roses? My nose starts to grow stuffy. I swipe a finger under my eyes. Ron straightens up, sheers tossed to the ground. The garden is empty, dark dry dirt exposed like a deep gash, loud and sore. Ron’s helper tames the rest of the yard with the mower, the steady hum of the motor pulling me back. I drift absently over to the wheelbarrow, staring down at the pile of dead roses and chopped weeds. Tears slip from my eyes and soak my cheeks. I reach down and pick up a rose, twirling it in my fingers. I turn, pushing through the fence door. The front lawn is neatly manicured now, matching the neighbor’s. I walked through the center of the soft, short grass and slide into my car. On the passenger seat lay a photo album, the smiling youthful faces of Grandma and Grandpa taped to the front. Above them were gold, cursive words. Life Together. A tepid smile appears through the tears that are now splashing over my lap and onto the cover. I open the album to the center, among pictures of the two of them holding their first child, my mother. I place the rose and close the book over it, pressing the covers together. I shift the car in gear and drive away from my grandparent’s home for the last time.

Her eyes were locked onto mine. Deep and dark, they led the passage to bliss, wonder, joy, and something that was capable of yanking my heart straight from my chest, rendering it useless at her feet.

Slowly she stood. Her stare was tender and fierce; a play of raw love and intensity, her posture poignant. She was on a mission. She had a goal. She was dedicated. She wasn’t going to fail. Today, right now, she was going to get what she wanted.

Her hand held firm to the back of the wooden chair from which she rose. A soft and slow smile crept across her lips. Her firm gaze never broke from mine. I was forzen. Transfixed.

A single, dark braid falls over her shoulder and sways, just below her navel, the curtains of her dark side bangs framing her angular face.

Her smile reaches her eyes. Dark lips bare and natural; makeup was never her thing. By no means did I ever notice. I had other things on my mind about her, other aspects of her that would steal my attention completely away.

She’s standing now, both arms straight as she straddles the back of the chair. She steps around it with one long, tanned leg, slight muscles surfacing under smooth, soft skin. Perfect skin. Marred by one long, pale and thin scar, like a ghostly finger, arching above her right knee. The kind of thing you would only notice up-close. And as I got to spending more time with her, I noticed that that scar stays bright as the rest of her skin tanned under summer suns.

So many sweet, summer suns.

She steps slowly towards me, the old wooden floor creaking beneath her feet. She’s dancing to a tune only she hears. I pick up on it. After all, we are two bodies of the same soul.

She makes her way to me, where I sit, my legs spread, hands on my thighs, waiting. My heart is in my throat, anticipation clawing its way out of me. My lips part, my neck craning as I keep my eyes with hers. Her gaze never letting up its hold on my eyes.

The skirt of her lavender colored, silk slip rides up as she positions herself atop in my thighs. A heavenly sweet perfume, floral and forest-y, fills my nostrils, intoxicating me. The palm of her hand caresses the back of my neck; soft, smooth, warm. Like home.

Her other hand travels up the thin t-shirt covering my chest. I desire so badly for her hand to slip beneath the shirt. To feel her fingers dance over my skin. I shiver, a chill crossing me at the thought. I feel myself stiffen inside my jeans, addicted to her. Obsessed. Crazy for the feeling. The feeling only she can give me. The very feeling that has changed my life, had me wanting for more.

I’ve never wanted more quite like this before.