Portrait

       She might knock everything off my desk. All of the gears, bits, scraps, junk and treasures would scatter and who would pick it all up, then? Sure, she wouldn’t mean to. But just last week, or maybe the year before, just by walking by in that clumsy, bouncy way she caused the sort of crash that- well you could just tell, just from the sound of it, that it was a mess. And, sure enough, there was my bike on the ground. It wasn’t new or anything, just something I had put together from bits I found over the years, but it was delicate. And worst of all, she just stood there, not knowing what to do with herself. She just stood there and looked up at me, as if it were her bike on the ground, as if I were to blame.  I’ll admit it now that I lost my temper, then. Heck, I don’t know anything about kids anymore. So I tell her to just sit still next to me and maybe watch some TV.
She sits down without protest or hesitation. That’s the thing about her, she doesn’t whine or make a fuss like other kids, and that’s what gets me thinking that she should know better than she does. And how old is she exactly, anyway? I ask her. Eleven, she says. Eleven. Well, I thought she was older. No, there is something young in her eyes, like she’s always surprised or wondering.
       And suddenly I remember her fully, back when she was- she couldn’t have been older than four. She had that same look back then, too, but maybe a little more spunk. And suddenly I remember her name. I say it. Just because I figure I haven’t said her name in a while, and one day I might- well… She looks at me expectantly.
      “Pass me that,” I say, pointing at nothing in particular.
       She hands me an ashtray and I guess that is just fine. I pat my chest, feeling around for the pocket, and yes- a cigarette. I sit there, fidgeting with the cigarette a bit. The television hums up a racket, but the sound sort of swims and fades under the echoes of the maybe- well, by now it must be- twenty clocks I’ve built and hung around the house.  I close my eyes for maybe just a second, tick-tick. And now I feel a tapping on my arm, tap-tap. I open my eyes and she’s tapping my arm in that mousy sort of way. She hands me a napkin, just as my eyes start to adjust. I take the napkin from her, slightly irritated and confused. I stare at it and I notice that it’s my face on that napkin- well, a sort of caricature of myself- with not quite as many wrinkles, and maybe a bit more hair.
      And suddenly I see her more fully. Eleven, now, but someday she will be a young woman. Someday she will be an artist. And it is enough to know this and know she will remember me. I stand up slowly, waiting for my bones to align just right, and set my granddaughter’s drawing on my desk, next to some gears, bits, scraps, junk and treasures.