Reflect

I sold the books I used to take on our Saturday breakfast trips.

Do you remember them?

"How can you do that instead of see where we're going?" You'd ask that sometimes, when you were driving. Sometimes I'd answer with, "I know how to get home."

It isn't like we talked, anyway.

But if I was lucky, you'd even chuckle at my answer. Smiling was rare enough.

We'd go to a little diner, and I'd always pick a wooden-backed booth instead of one of the green vinyl mid-century modern ones. I remembered them as having higher backs, but I found a picture online of the place. 1951, it was dated. Hard to believe so many decades later we were being served by the same staff.

Every Saturday.

Unless we went to Hardee's. There, it was Moose cups and sausage biscuits.

I never really liked it when you chose Hardee's, because the little tiny town I used to live in only had that restaurant in it. Maybe two other local spots, but just the fast food was available for a Sunday meal. The rest of the city was rolled up tight when Jesus walked in across the lake for his weekly tithe.

I don't miss you like I thought I would, but I miss our breakfasts.

I miss the you that you used to be, goddammit.

I miss the us that we were, before age and anger and bitterness crept in around your edges. I miss the days before I got old enough to see the rust in the frame, the cracks in the leather. I miss the days when you cared enough to pretend to be happy, and maybe you were.

To a grandson, you were what a man was supposed to be.

I wish we'd been able to speak as men.

In the end, I wish we'd been able to speak at all.

I sold the books I used to take on our Saturday morning trips, not because they reminded me of you. Nothing so sentimental. I sold them because they were just decoration on a shelf, and I have new memories to put on display.

I don't need those mementos of our time together, because I see you every time I look in the mirror.