Four
Last night we went to Klowa. It was Helen’s first time there since the fire.
A garden sage plant is growing under the maple tree’s new shoots, and I picked a piece for Helen; when she smelled it her eyes lit up. There, in that courtyard, she used to pick sage leaves to use as toys while I weeded the garden beds. I remember her cradling baby sage leaves in big hollyhock-leaf blankets. “I love that smell,” she told me.
It was my fourth time back, my first since the cinder blocks were scraped away and the basement was half-filled. The space is smaller than I remember. Life has moved on. The sage plant and the maple tree are tough survivors in the dry, brittle soil. The burdock fares better.
I took a photo of Helen and then she asked for my phone. Blurry photos of bushes and bricks. When she handed it back, she said, “I don’t like Klowa as much anymore.”
Neither do I, sweetie.
Originally published on Instagram @meghanfandrich
