Time.

My grandfather died not long after Romy was born. He was the last of my living grandparents. Utah is the land of my parents and their parents. My mom and I drove over to Hyrum yesterday, the little town with a Main Street in Northern Utah, where she grew up and where her parents built their life. The house was bare - nothing left. I walked through it and caught glimpses of moments: root-beer floats in the kitchen, sleepovers with cousins in the basement - where my grandpa would tell grizzly bear stories and have us all lie down and swish the liquid in our bellies to help our digestion, informal piano recitals in the living room, standing feeling awed by my grandma's powder puff in the bathroom, games on the front lawn - checkerboard mowed, running out to the tennis court - now decayed and deflated by weeds. The rooms were all chock full - like the feeling in my throat as I moved through them. We sat for a while and I looked through boxes of photographs. It was magical and terrifying. I looked down at Romy sleeping on the floor and the clip of time felt so tangible.