In my memory lodges a perfect Summer day.
I am maybe 5 years old. The blue sky is stretched tight overhead, and with 5 cents in my sweaty hand I walk to the strip-mall to buy an ice-cream cone.
The sidewalk is too hot for bare feet.
When I come back I sit down in front of our house and slowly lick the cold treat to make it last.
Behind the house my mother has rigged a sheet between some trees to create more shade, and under it is the Saturday-night wash tub with water for me to play in. The neighbour's kids, a little older than I, come over to join in the water fun.
That's it. There is no end to it, as in a dream. Was it a dream? It was the last carefree Summer of my life. Thunderclouds came to our family, and the thunder still rolls this many years later.
(when did a cone cost 5 cents?!)
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