Sepia Summers

Last summer, I parked my car in that lot and stepped out to look around. There was nothing left that looked familiar — not a fence, not a boulder, not even the tree with the white flowers.

I remember that tree with white flowers, the one whose branches swept the ground. It was like a tent you could hide in, and if you squinted just enough to block the view of the bungalows, you could almost believe you were in a magical forest. There was a pine tree with low branches like that too, but the ground under it was dry and hard, and the bark oozed sap, so we didn’t sit and dream under its branches.

Bungalow 19 — that was us. I loved the ironing board that folded out of the wall, the rotary wall phone with the long, curled cord, and the kitchen counter that looked like the counter in a store. My mother would stand behind it and ask what we’d want for breakfast. Clad in sweaters, we ate honeycombs on the enclosed porch, protected from the cold milk and cold air. The furniture was old, not old enough for vintage charm, just old, but it meant summer to us.