Faraway

Horimoto made for me, when suddenly the liquid notes made me stop, in mid-word...the music, the melody, something from my faraway past, years fading like mountain mist, and then I remember - a music box from somewhere in my childhood, note for note, memory for memory. I am seven again, or eight, tucked into bed next to my younger sister. My mom has kissed us good night, said our prayers, scratched our backs, sang to us, and now she's standing at the chest of drawers, turning the music box key once, twice, three times, so we can have just a little more music while we sleep. The room is dark; the white canopy over the bed hangs in soft gray folds in the shadows. The hall light is shining yellow, illuminating the door frame, a patch of brown and white wallpaper in the hall, a corner of the brown ceiling, and my mom's slight, feminine figure as she sets the music box down. She steps outside and pulls the door closed, leaving it open "just a crack," the way we like it. I think about the stories I'm writing, my homework, whether or not the U.S. will go to war with Russia, whether or not I'll be a writer and get married when I grow up, how funny it is that adults do things like marry and have children and sit around and talk rather than play, how safe I am in that room from faraway cities and crime and rawness of the world, how glad I am that I know how to say my prayers and not be afraid, and why does my sister always go to sleep before me so I don't have anyone to talk to?

Almost twenty years later, and the only thought that dares to form in response to this faraway memory is that God was there, too, still...still...