Memory Bites

Memory cannot be forced. Details are lost. Later used to fictionalize a life that was worth the detail.  Many hours were spent in her tidy apartment that was tucked in the back of the building and under a zig-zag of ascending stairs. I was always first to make it to the back door stepping into the sweet aroma of Toll House cookies. She made the best ever cookies. I remember smells so vividly like mothballs in the closet and the dried rose petals that were held in a plastic cylinder with holes from which the fragrance would escape with gentle shaking.  When I spent the night, she would spread freshly laundered sheets on the monstrous couch. I remember how cool they were as I slipped in between the linen.  She always put the wooden straight chair from her old maple desk to prevent me from rolling off the couch in the middle of the night. She would lean down, her loose flesh swallowing me in love.  I cannot hear her say, “I love you.”  I know she did.  A voice is so uniquely individual yet, I cannot remember how she sounded.   I wish I could hear her voice again. Just a sound bit will do.