you and me – POSTCARD #10

This card completes 10% of the project! Thanks to Nom, who is also a talented poet, for sending this wonderful card.

sticky

how they met

She met him in an antique store.

That’s the main thing I want to remember for her.

When I was small I’d sit on her knee while Grandad mowed the lawn and ask her to tell how they met. She’d look out the window as he passed, singing over the motor as grass cuttings and the delicious smell of my childhood wafted through the air.

Well, she’d start, I always carried an enormous tote bag and I was holding it to my chest so I didn’t knock any of the unmarked items.

She’d clutch me tight like I was her bag until I giggled then she’d roll her eyes and say how silly things without price tags were.

How are you supposed to know you can afford it, if it’s not even marked?

Like the horse! I’d shout and point.

Yes, poppet, the cabinet.

We’d look across the living room at the sunlight shining on the bronzed, carved door.

I only asked the sales girl how much it was out of curiosity, and she snapped that it was out of my league. Looking my homemade dress up and down. So I stormed out.

And you and Grandad bumped heads…

Yes, we walked right into each other. And there I was covered in sticky ice cream and bits of broken waffle cone. Now what kind of man charges into an antique store holding an ice cream?

The owner!

Her smile would soften as we looked around the living room containing every precious item from the floor that day.

She never told it the same way once he died. Her eyes sparkled with tears instead of the story and when she was diagnosed she said it would be a relief to forget.

So I remember for her.