Gemotions

The scent of honeysuckle, thick and cloying, drifted from Mrs. Gable’s garden. It always did this time of year, just like it had when I was a kid, sneaking glances over the fence, convinced there were fairies amongst the blooms. Now, the fence was gone, replaced by a wrought iron monstrosity guarding a meticulously manicured lawn. I watched from my porch, a half-eaten apple turning brown in my hand, as she emerged, a vision in crisp linen.

She was walking her miniature poodle, Monsieur Fifi, on a leash studded with what I now realized were diamonds. Diamonds! She’d always seemed so… ordinary. A woman who watered her petunias religiously and baked cookies for the church bake sale. The realization, a sharp pang in my chest, felt like the memory of a first crush, sweet and then unexpectedly gone.

I remembered the worn leather of my baseball glove, the crack of the bat, the way the late afternoon sun warmed the back of my neck. I sighed, the apple forgotten, as I pictured her: a quiet woman, an empty cookie sheet in her hands, waving to me with a smile as I rode my bike by. The world had shifted, but that image, that simple gesture, remained, a phantom limb aching with what was.