Collisions

In this house we could host banquets and balls, we could have been happy here if only we had tried. Instead we watch the unfulfilled dreams we had of echoing music and high heeled dancing throughout these summer nights slowly wither away like mother's neglected orchids.

One of his friends, Elisa, wants to take us to Saint-Tropez. "It's beautiful" she says but what she means is the people there are beautiful. Henry disagrees, "Saint-Tropez is a sewer" he says. I was there a decade ago with mother, she said it would help us breathe again after the fall. One morning I woke early and took a walk alone, up the hills through the old city, away from the harbor and the money and the ships. It was spring, the fresh green grass sprinkled with little flowers, red, white and yellow. Along the coastline were houses worth millions but all I heard was the silence and the sea.

I remember watching the sun come up quietly like I had done so many times with him, my father. For the first time in months I felt something other than cold underneath my celadon skin, a brand new emotion that relentlessly began pushing forward the devastating fear of forgetting.