Same park. Same oak tree. Same bench, which has a brass plate on it now for a woman who died in 1998 and whose family I’ve never met.
Emma had a new coat. Navy, hood, bought in a store, with the tag still in the sleeve because she wanted to show me the tag.
Strawberry swirl. Same as always. Some things you don’t change.
And she was telling me about an art project involving tinfoil and a shoebox when she stopped partway through a sentence, which is a thing she does and which stops my heart every single time, and said:
“Grandpa? Can I ask you something kind of bad?”
And I put my coffee down on the bench — which I did very deliberately, and which I am going to do every single time she says that for the rest of my life — and I said:
“You can ask me anything, and it won’t be bad, and I’m not going anywhere.”
