In my mind, the grandmother sets a glass of sweet tea in front of me. The tassels on the checkered picnic blanket tickle my legs as lean forward to take a sip. I tell her I want to go out back, to the murky pond where I lost all my toys so many years ago. She tells me okay, but only after I look at her scrapbooks.
She clicks to the shelf behind me and I am delighted that she smells more like homemade strawberry jam than expensive perfume. I hear her cough as she slides a thick album out from the array of selections. She holds it to her chest and makes her way back around, plopping it on the table and opening it up like a wizard and his book of spells. My sweet tea nearly jumps out of the glass.
In my mind, the scrapbook is full of pictures of me skating on the frozen pond, swinging on the neighbors’ broken play structure, and drinking Mountain Dew on the deck--the deck that hasn’t been repainted in 7 years and 16 days.
The grandmother closes the book at last and I wheeze and sneeze again. She tells me to go on out-- and to be wary of the Asian tigers who live next door. I realize now that this isn’t in my mind. My heart is very close to my home, and the past 5 years were just in my mind.
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