I strolled down the cracked, faded sidewalk slowly, trying to soak up all of the memories that lay there. None were as strong as the one which slept inside the newest-looking square of cement. I knelt as soon as I saw it. Ran my fingertips over our five-year-old handprints and the badly scrawled names beneath them them. Ben and Sarah. A smile spread across my lips. It was such a simple name for such a beautiful girl. I missed her every day I was gone. Every day for six years.
Before I left, that last day of fifth grade, she had promised me two things - that she would write every week, and that she would wait here until I came back. The first promise had been neatly kept, gracing me with many detailed accounts of her days without me. Every single one of them ended with her pleading, 'Come back soon. I miss you.' But was she able to keep the second promise?
Was she still living in the house that overlooked this section of sidewalk?
~~~
He's kneeling there, in front of our old house, touching the handprints we made in the sidewalk. I remember that day clearly. Crystal clear. Because I loved him even then, when we were both children. Me, in my flowered sundress; Ben, in his denim shorts and light t-shirt; both of us pressing our little five-year-old palms into the wet cement and trying to write our names beneath. I accidentally got a little on the billowy hem of my dress and Ben, always the gentleman, helped me clean it off before my Mom saw and I got into trouble.
I smiled. He hadn't changed much since the last time I'd seen him. The little boy I'd missed so much had obviously grown into a man, but everything else was still basically the same. His light blond hair still fell around his eyes. He was still tall and lean. And he was still completely oblivious.
I watched him walk up the lawn to the old house where we'd spent so many afternoons together, watched him peer into the windows only to find it dark and deserted. I could practically hear what he was thinking as he loped back down to the sidewalk - I hadn't kept the promise I'd made to him before he left, it seemed, for good.
But I had. Every day I sat down on this bench and waited for him to come. Every day I walked three miles to wait for this moment. When would he notice me, sitting here, watching him? Would he recognize me? Would he care?
Should I call his name?
~~~
"Ben . . . ?"
My head whipped towards the sound. That was her voice. I knew that it was, because it was sounded like flowers when they move in the wind. So quiet and slow.
And there she was, in a patterned dress eerily similar to the one she wore when we made this memory, brunette curls spilling over her shoulders. The green in her eyes still shone in the sunlight, overpowered only by the icy blue that surrounded it. I remembered the days I spent staring into those eyes, wondering how the little spring green flecks got there in the first place. To me, they were just magic. Plain and simple. A miracle.
I felt myself being wrapped up in her loveliness, just like I used to. It, in itself, was lovely.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
