Adapted from image by Pascal Genest
Another Time,
Then
My dead grandmother is on the phone, her voice as comforting as the shade of Magnolia. She asks to speak to Lindsay, my secret lover she never knew.
“Lindsay?” I clarify.
If this were as simple as general relativity.
“She’s a Yankee, I know,” my grandmother says. “Still, she’s important. Put her on.”
Her voice is strong as a current, a river as wide as my hope for the world in 1975. When my grandmother drove a goldenrod Ford and smoked Kent cigarettes by the dozens. When everyone lived and there was plenty of time.
“Is she there, dear? Can I speak with her?”
I’d solve this if I could.
But even dream-fuzzy I know there’s no way. Lindsay’s in Vermont with her husband. He’s not well; he’s much older. He’s dark and spiraling and. . .
Don’t try to explain.
My lover. My Lindsay. I feel her heartbeat sometimes, distant but constant, as I drift to sleep in my sublet. Waiting.
“I have to go now,” my grandmother says. “Maybe another time, then. You tell her.”
Before my eyes open, both of their faces float aglow against gravitational midnight. There is no space here, no time, no explanation for the warmth that covers me. For an instant, at least, I hold the universal secret of remembrance.
Don’t let go.
Copyright © 2009 by Mary Lynn Reed
