I have to drive a long way to her house.
This city is sort of like that, though, sprawling and disjointed in places. I still don't have a sense of where I am going most of the time. I keep my eyes open to the changing cityscape and sometimes, when things start to look familiar, I pick my way around until I get to where I need to go.
I am both always and never in a rush.
I never ask for help because I don't like to talk.
I like her because she doesn't seem to mind that there is nothing much to me.
I visit her in the house she has lived in for a long time. It is set back from the road, hidden beneath old trees and bushes. It is quiet here and it suits her, like a haven. When she gives me the tour, I see the ways in which the layers of her fit together, where the joints are. I am introduced to the history and even to the ghosts housed under old sheets who wait to go somewhere else.
I am grateful for this, the stories and the silences and the conversation.
I don't tell her exactly, because I don't take those risks anymore.
Instead, we eat and talk and laugh a little. It is easy.
Later, we sit outside sipping water and watching the fireflies. They are like strings of lights in the trees, blinking and multiplying, counting minutes that might otherwise lost in the dark, so far away from the noise.
