Do you remember when I was seven and you took me to the river by our house? You held me by my chubby fingers and led me to the gentle flow and watched as I dug my little toes into the damp sand and gasped when they brushed the creatures that lived there. You gave a smile and uncovered the small shells and pebbles that hid under the coarse tan sand. You watched me as I stared in awe at the rosy pink and white ivory that glinted in the dappled sunlight. You sunbathed as I knelt and tried to catch the rapids in my toddler hands. You took me to the river every day for the rest of the summer and showed me the trees and flowers that grew on the sloped banks. You promised in the fall, when it was too cold to swim, that we would go back on the first day of summer. You gave me a calendar that had a different flower for each month so that every day of the cold winter I could mark off a day in my blue marker and flip back to the bold “JUNE” above the white daisy. You said that it was too cold to play outside so we read Tom Sawyer by the fireplace every night until we had finished the entire book. You told Mama and she was so proud of us, she bought us The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the spring. You got sick in the spring. You didn’t ever tell me when you felt bad, so Mama blamed me for playing with you and cried at night because her baby was dying, but I didn’t know. You always told me it was just the stomach flu so I made you cards that had white daisies on them as a reminder of the upcoming summer. You and Mama forgot my birthday that year so I made a mud-pie in the lot by our house and put a twig in it. You stumbled outside in your blue blanket and winced at the sun, ignoring Mama’s shouting. You handed me a maple twig and I stuck it in the pie and we sang “Happy Birthday” to me. You got worse in May, but Mama kept muttering to herself that you would get better so I kept marking off the days of May that sat under the pretty pink pansies. You died on May 28. Mama was sad all the time and she didn’t go outside. Mama used to walk us to school but on May 30 I walked alone. I left to go to the river on the first day of June, because I thought that you would be there. I dug my toes in the sand and tried to catch the rapids while I waited for you to come. I gave up when it got dark and walked back to the house and Mama was gone. I thought she went to the bar again so I made Mac and Cheese for dinner and set the table and waited for her to come home. I got tired so I brushed my teeth, real good like you taught me, and fell asleep in your old twin bed that still smelled like you. Mama jumped that night. I went to live with Aunty for a while and I kept going to school. I still thought of you a lot but not like I used to. I talked about you once at dinner, just said I wanted to see your grave, and Aunty got real quiet. I waited while she stood up and walked to the office, she came back carrying a box. I stood at the bank of the river the next day, the same place we always went. I thought about you while the sun warmed my back and I remembered when I was seven and you took me to the river. I decided maybe it was time to let you go and as the silver ashes floated to the water, I wondered if maybe you remembered when I was seven and you took me to the river by our house.