What if I felt like I belonged in the glow?

He carefully parks the Cadillac in the handicap space. I notice them at a glance but only really see them when their car reflects golden off the sunset for a moment, just the flash of a moment. I'm tempted away from the conversation by the glow in my eye like a hymn sung in perfect voice. But the voice is a color not a sound.

I'm enamored.

The conversation at my table floats but my attention is elsewhere.

She does not move. I watch her stillness and I know her, I know the routine, know what is needed and expected. He slowly gets out of the car, puts his tired feet on the ground, places his left hand on the car door, pauses a long moment before pulling himself up. He wears dark slacks, dress shoes, a casual shirt, no tie. A jacket pulled from a hanger on second thought. I think I can hear him sigh for the effort he knows will be called forth on this night.

Slowly, with careful foot, he walks around the car, approaches her door, reaches his aged hand to the handle and opens my view.

She is perfect, seasonal, appropriately dressed. She is the image of my mother. She has pearls in her ears, a thin rain coat of beige, a floral blouse, tan slacks falling in a crease across the top of her brown loafers. She moves her legs towards us. He opens the back door and with some effort, pulls her walker from the back seat, opens it up and presents the open metal arms to her. She eyes him, a fragile smile forms on her face, and reaches for and adjusts the arms to her preference, stands from the seat of the car and into the security of the walker. She glances to her left, towards the path leading to the front door, takes a deep breath, looks to him again. He meets her eye.

Together, something long ago was written, something that says they'll get there, something musical and sensual and personal. Something that says they know how to rely on one another.

I am close enough, and they are clear enough. I recognize the looks, the sighs; I recognize that thing. I recognize what circles between them. I grew up with it and I know it well.

I watch them as if this is more than their struggle, as if they know who they remind me of and I must be careful with my dance on the balance between them and my heart, else I could bruise them. I watch them as if the slightest breath from my lungs would shatter the delicate connection between my memory and their reality. I watch them cautiously, as if they are fragile and I might break their bones with my gaze. I watch them with care and envy and all the protection of my heart's dreams, those that fall in a confusing and blurry line between past and future but rarely the present. I watch them as if I have the right, as if I know. As if this is something happening to me, as if their going to dinner was something altogether different than who and where they are, as if their night had something less to do with him and her and more to do with us.

I remember the nights when Mom and Dad and the family would go to dinner. Usually Wednesdays, usually the country club. I remember my father calling me, You'll meet us won't you? Please. Meet us at the house for drinks at 5:30, or meet us at the restaurant at 7:00. Your mother wants to go out to dinner.

I remember the nights before the canes and walkers. I recall the nights of piano and brandy and my knowing the hour too late but any price I'd pay for their company on a night like this when they are recalling songs and telling me stories, when we speak of memories and dreams as if the two slumbered together and I had only to figure it out. I remember his big hand on my shoulder and his big voice telling me he loved me, and her eyes shining, ever-shining. And I remember nights of his silver-tipped cane and her walker, nights of patience, of my wondering how come there was never a reward for all the effort it took to get there and be there. Surely there should be something at least for him, at least for her. Something more than my watching, my knowing that someday I would lose them and suddenly need to hang on to every minute I could possibly recall. At least we can stay for one more song.

Mom and I, we always want one more song.

He'd look at me, his blue eyes watering, and he would mouth the words, thank you, to me. As if I had done him a favor, as if it wasn't my honor to join my mother and father for dinner.

As if polishing wings would ever trouble me.

Her birthday was Monday. She had no idea. No care, no clue, no recognition at all. Nothing, nothing at all but her eyes looking outward, past me, past the walls, past anything I can know.

But she's here, she is.

His birthday is Thursday. Just now I typed is and then backspaced over it and typed was and then backspaced over that and wrote is again. I don't know what is right. The tenth day of May will always be the day he was born. Is his birthday.

This week is a week that pulls heavy on my heart.

I know he's gone, and I know she's working on her own personal exit. With each breath I pull into my lungs, I know he is gone and she is here, I know I've lost him and am losing her. But they are so vibrant, so alive in my heart. And my wishes. No matter how nonsense they are, my star-light-star-bright-first-star-I-see-tonight wishes, my dreamy, cloudy, child-of-theirs, unrealistic murky memory-dream-wishes are these:

We are going to dinner at the country club. I open her door and she steps out of the car, reaches for my hand. She is grand, as regal as her mother's daughter, she is my mother. She wears her pearl earings, her pearl necklace, her chosen true-navy-blue dress, her polished shoes. She shines and I look to her as I always do and feel her warmth and her strength, her beauty and her life. I am blessed by her and feel that I belong there, with her on my arm.

He places his hand on my shoulder, loving and gentle.

She hands her purse to me as she reaches for my father's arm so that he can walk her into the restaurant, through the open doors. I smile at her, wink at him him, step in behind them, behind the steps of my mother and father, arm in arm.

The piano player wraps his notes around them and I watch them fall into the music and light. Their color fills my eyes like a golden hymn sung in perfect voice. And in that light they dance, and in that light I watch.

It's a dream not a wish but I can't help wishing. And I can't believe my dreams aren't true, I just can't. What if his big hands are opening the door for her tonight? What if his big hands are on my shoulders right now?

What if love gave golden light and answered all the heart's longings?

What if everything beautiful we witnessed, everything we believed in, was the truth?