I was sitting in my backyard this afternoon with sore feet and a bittersweet heart, thinking about that one hot day that Val and I put the dog in the car and drove over to Dairy Queen. Or maybe we were coming back from somewhere, because otherwise why would we drive to Dairy Queen? We never went to Dairy Queen, and why would we drive? It was pretty close to the house, just not in the usual direction. Maybe too far to walk with the dog.
There was nobody else there at all. Vacant parking lot on a scruffy, undeveloped neighborhood corner, reminding me of my small-town hometown. We got vanilla cones – maybe the twist machine wasn’t working. Or maybe I got a twist and Val got vanilla – maybe she would remember. She remembered all the parts I forget. Now I will have to make them up. I hate that.
Anyway, we were sitting there, parked, with Tuley between us in the car – although maybe it was the truck? maybe it was raining? – when Val got tired of her cone partway through, and suddenly she offered it to the dog.
Tuley couldn’t believe her luck. I was scandalized. But it was so funny to watch Tuley hurriedly licking and licking as Val held the cone for her and turned it so she would catch the drips.
Right: we make the people closest to our bones the repositories of our memories. We think we’re individuals, but really we’re local hives that remember things together in puzzle pieces. Wait, no, what goes here? Do you have that piece? And then you’re asking into the silence.
Asking into the silence. Oof. Yes.