Can’t remember much of it. A divan. A curtain. Walking up dozens and dozens of stairs, listening to her.
She was maybe… nine. Ten. Not sure. But she was young, and thoughtful, and she spoke constantly, constantly about topics I didn’t quite understand. About ideas I was close to understand, things that reminded me of the way I looked at things when I was a kid. I think? I don’t remember what I was like as a child all that clearly. Maybe I’m just remembering what I’m told it’s like to be a child.
She was bringing me to meet her mum. Her mum and I know each other. She was excited, excited she’d found me because I shouldn’t be around in these parts, because finding me was… impossible? And so, this little girl held my hand and dragged ahead of me despite the snow and the cold, talking to me about physics and art and books, oh, her mum’s books.
She was brown, but Polynesian brown. Not a type of person I see every day, but who I do see from week to week.
I remember her name was Hope.