I slept in dad’s old room when we went to grandma’s. A great expanse of green fields and fresh country air, chilly and vast, forged its way through the mangled woods my grandparents were too old now to tend to. The woods have remnants of walking paths carved around them, and pine needles that cover the ground. Walking them as an adult felt out of place. There is peaceful quiet here. Golf carts. Wind chimes. A roaming cat. Pecan trees. My grandpa’s tool shed. Brick patio. A warm house and the smell of cinnamon. I would only scrape the sides of the pies my grandma would make, careful of the sugar. Big grandfather clock that sang every hour. Sickly plaid bedspreads that felt crunchy against my skin. I’m always cold at night. Echoes of my dad’s childhood that I would never understand, never be able to fully grasp. It was made to be like that.

The magic is made in my mind. It’s nothing tangible. In fact, I spend most of my time here now counting the hours until I can leave. There is no good reason why. “How much longer do you have in school?” my uncle asks me, gathered around the table at Thanksgiving. Picking at the turkey on my plate, eating around the stuffing. Eyes on me. I can feel them judging me, even if they don’t mean to. I don’t have siblings here to share the burden. I thought that they probably thought I was lazy, awkward, and vulgar at times. Embarrassingly unlike them. The truth is I don’t know what they think, and probably never will. I’d usually sit here quietly until I felt I had to speak. That time was now. “This is my last semester,” I say with mustered enthusiasm.

My Grandma would have decaf after dinner, in place of her dessert. Sometimes I’d sit with her at the coffee table after everyone went in the living room with their pie. She’d ask me about school and friends and what I wanted to do with my life. My answers were always calculated. I’d never seen her hands before without a perfect manicure. The image was jarring, and it made me think about how old she was getting. She still had a full face of makeup on and half a bottle of hair spray in her hair, two things I thought she’d take to the grave. “Aren’t you going to have something sweet?” she asks me. There’s a big wooden bowl in the middle of the table full of fake fruit. When I was little, I would pluck at the little plastic grapes and rip them from their fake vines. My Grandma didn’t like this, of course. I wonder if she felt the same way when I would flip through the coffee table books with my sticky little fingers, books that were never meant to be touched, only admired from afar. A little table of tricks.

I wander outside to lay on the patio and face the vast open sky. Cold November sun on my face. Chilly air whirling around my ears. Petting the cat as she floats on by. The wind chimes rattle now and again, and cars roar up and down the road ahead. Thoughts of resentment creep into my peripheral. The usual feelings of being misunderstood, unable to conform, unwilling. I’d only stare at the sun, edges of my vision going black, wondering if my dad ever lay here before.