it is 7pm on the type of summer night that tricks you into thinking that summer might just last forever, that no season beyond the one of sunshine and salty air, mugginess and mosquitos, has ever or will ever exist again. the last dregs of golden hour are trickling through the old oak trees that line my parents’ backyard, the smell of cumin-seasoned chicken wafts from the grill. there are discarded pool towels, ragged and fraying at the edges from years of use, draped along the picket fence. the musical notes of children’s laughter carry from the screened porch to the patio. we are scattered throughout, my oldest friends kim and joia, our families, and me. seated beneath a blue and white striped umbrella outside is my mom, and kim’s mom, and kim and joia’s husbands. kim, joia, my mommy and i are sequestered on the porch itself, supervising three young children who seem determined to eat their corn cobs as messily as is humanely possible.
the evening hums with the sort of magic that can only be found amongst people who have been in one another’s lives for a very, very long time. it is exactly the sort of evening i used to dream of, back when kim and joia and i were younger, before they’d found their partners, gotten married, had kids. all of us together, children tangled at our heels, our parents older and grayer but still present and accounted for around us. three even slices of a pie, each one resplendent and individual, coming together to make one whole. it is exactly what i had hoped it would be. except that i am alone.
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