Sweetness (reflection)

Mr. Erikson lived next door. Him and his wife were seemingly always the same age; old. Their grandkids would come over to play in their big backyard, next to ours. We would often play together seeing as we were just a few years difference. Everyone probably thought I had had a crush on their eldest boy, Jay Jr. But I did not.

Mrs. Erikson, Jay Jr.’s Mom, was always funny and kind. She would always have freshly squeezed lemonade for us kids whenever they were at their grandparents’ next door and the pool was freshly filtered. I was 14 and Jay Jr. was 10. But I didn’t have odd feelings for him.

Jay Jr.’s dad--Mr. Jay--didn’t look like my Dad. He was slender, and collected. He definitely looked like a Mr. Erikson in his younger photographs posted all over their home. I never knew what career he held, but it seemed like he was happily productive and provided well.

When he drank his wife’s lemonade, he’d say thank you sweetly, winking some secret exclusive between them. I didn’t comprehend what it had meant, yet, of course. Shirtless, his greying chest nested a thin gold chain, its twinkle almost blinding me in the pool, but it never was the shine that bothered me.

He’d play with his kids while our Dad stayed inside, stuffily reading the newspaper like a 35 year old man, where there was air condition, honoring his Floridian roots.

Mr. Jay looked like I wasn’t allowed to discuss feelings I had for him. Me studying him out the corner of my eye in the midst of playing around with his sons and niblings. In the midst of spraying Sister in the face so she couldn’t see what I was witnessing.

A bearded-adonis glistening in the shaded sunlight in the early evening, as the fireflies were just saying their hellos to the sky's dusky nightfall. A man who’s physique escaped my current cohorts, but they may tantalize the next, next door neighbor’s intellect and memory banks. He was witty and smart, and conscientious of his family’s well-being. From what I could tell from the brief moments I had consumed, he loved his family and his family loved him.

What I felt wasn’t love. What I felt wasn’t wrong, not really; it only began a spark of piqued intrigue into what I had wanted in the moment. What parts tickled what wishes I have now for further actions. I am glad nothing happened to me back in those years of development. I doubt there was any reciprocation; on a basic level of awareness, I knew such a mirrored-attraction was wrong. And if anything, it stirred what I would someday find attractive now. The feelings I had in those young summer moments were rightly quieted and hushed.

Snow.