Daydreams

The sound of raindrops gently hitting the skylight above her caused her to smile as she opened her eyes. She slowly realized that he was not pressed against her and she reached behind her to feel the bed warm but empty. She looked around seeing no movement, hearing no sound that would tell her he was still in the cabin. Sliding her feet off of the bed into slippers and reaching for her robe, she looked around again. No, he wasn't in the cabin and the lone yellow slicker that had hung near the door was missing.

Where could he have gone? Did he leave a note? She looked around the small one room hideaway and saw nothing that would suggest where he might be. There wasn't any doubt that he would be back so she walked to the bench by the window and sat, resting her chin on her hand that touched the window sill...and thought back to yesterday. Was it only yesterday.?

Driving from the ferry, knowing instinctively where she was going she drove until she saw the familiar brush that gave the sweetest blackberries when in season. Many times had she been sent with a pail to gather enough for jam or a cobbler only to eat more than ever ended up in the pail. But there had always been enough to add sugar and cream to for desert later. She drove down the gravel road that appeared to end a short distance from the road. Few people knew that a little further there would be the lean-to next to her grandfather's old wood shop. The smells of the damp underbrush and wood were a shock because they were instantly familiar, as familiar as the flagstones that would lead past the stone barbeque pit to the back of the log home that her grandparents had lived in so long ago.

She walked along the side of the house and saw the old swinging bench, tucked into the small stand of trees, was still there. It looked like the original but as she drew closer she saw that as old as it was it was different...she ran her hand down the chain, holding it for a moment before she slowly sat on the bench. She gave the ground a short kick to set the swing in motion and grinned when she heard the familiar squeak. The bench may be different but the chains were the very ones that held the swing of her childhood, a sign to reassure her that even with the new there is old. She leaned back as she did when she was a child and watched the clouds pass through the tops of the trees.

She walked, following the path to the dock. It looked nothing like the one she sat on with her grandfather and their fishing poles. AS she sat in what could have been "her spot", she pulled her knees up under her chin and went back in time. She almost chuckled out loud when she remembered the time she pulled her line out of the water to see a crab hanging onto her bait. Oh the squeals she let out then. Her grandfather had tried not to laugh..

"Get the crab onto the dock" he shouted.

Who knew how fast those little buggers could go on land. The beast had chased her until her grandfather came to the rescue by popping a bucket down on top of the not so little troublemaker. Crab Louie, that night was extra special as, with a straight face, grandpa told grandma how brave she had been with her catch.

Walking past the huckleberry bushes now she headed towards the "Doghouse". A one room cabin with a bathroom...the perfect playhouse for a girl and her best friend when they would be allowed to travel from Seattle alone on the ferry to visit her grandparents. Shortly after dinner they would grab their bags (loaded with trashy romance magazines, makeup and other girly things) and run up to settle in for the night.

One of those nights grandpa decided that maybe his girls would feel more secure if he gave them the key to the place. He closed the door on the inside to show how the big brass key was supposed to work. Yes, it locked the door. But then....it wouldn't unlock the door. No matter which way he turned it the door remained locked. The terror of being stuck with 2 giggling girls for the night hit him at that moment and he opened the window and climbed out with the promise that he would be back to let us out, somehow, the next morning. True to his word he came back and opened the door by removing it from the hinges.

She smiled, missing him intensely at that moment. She wished that she had told him more often how much she loved him when she had the chance.

She would not look into the windows of the main house. She had heard that the doctor who owned the property now had renovated the house into some modern-techno getaway and she didn't have the heart to lose the mental pictures of her grandmother's glass in the windows. Her grandmother's old treadle sewing machine, where grandma would stitch wool into miles of strips to be used to make the braided rugs she made to earn her "pin" money, would still be in the back corner of the house, at least in her mind. She remembered sitting there rolling the wool as grandma stitched, listening to stories of "the olden days"..

It had been time to leave, ghosts had begun to settle and peace was finding it's place inside her.

She had walked to where she parked the car and there he was. The look on his face said he had watched her visit the past and that he understood that something this simple was that important to her. There had been no pressure from him to "hurry up and get over it" no pressure from her to make him see what she saw she walked on and into his open arms. Hanging on a ribbon held in his hand she saw it. The brass key, the one she remembered in her grandfather's hand.

The smell of carnations brought her from her "lost in thought" frame of mind and she turned to see him leaning on the door frame with a spray of carnations. The flowers, bright and pale colors that matched the rainbow shining over his shoulder in the sky above the trees.

He walked towards her and she knew she was where she wanted to be and sharing this with him was better than she could have hoped in her deepest daydreams.