the memory of a walk
She floats in and out of memories, the way a photographer developing prints glides the paper through basin after basin of liquids, the images appearing faint at first, gradually acquiring color and depth.
Holding tight to her father’s hand, she is walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood. It is an autumn night, and the leaves that had fallen to the sidewalk crunch under her feet as she skips to keep up with her father’s long strides. The feeling of nauseating anticipation she feels whenever they visit someone for the first few times churns her small stomach. Fear of the unknown and the unexpected, the breaking of a routine safe in its familiarity, and an inability to comprehend what she has not experienced before makes the world a large and threatening place. Solace comes from the large warm hand that grasps hers protectively, though her father is more distracted than usual tonight, the serious expression softening only when he looks at her. The garage door at this house has black diamonds painted on it in a foreboding design, not like the neat carved squares on their white garage door. She is four years old, old enough to recognize that the not-so-nice houses have strange black designs on the garage doors and lots of lines of black tar on the street, and the nice houses like home are on smooth gray streets, with garage doors painted to match the shutters and the front door for guests. She and her father walk up the driveway of this house, but she remembers no more.
Every so often, as far back as her elementary school days until today, her father will mention his friend, a “dear brother” who had died, slowly, painfully, of a debilitating disease that took away his ability to move from his bed for months, before it took away his heart’s ability to beat. “You came with me once, to visit him, remember?” her father will ask her, after recalling the man’s kindness, deep religious faith, or overwhelmingly intelligent children who graduated from Ivy Leagues and turned down job offers from Colin Powell to pursue graduate studies. When she entered her high school entrenched in the shadows of the looming college application process, her admiration for the brainy children became grudging -very grudging. Yet the father continues to intrigue her. She has no memories of him, but he maintains a constant presence. Only the memory of a walk down a street in late fall, to a home that might have been his, serves to link them.
