Memory
By ZionAngel
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He remembers his parents pretty well. He was eighteen when they died, so it's not like he was too young to remember or anything. Forgetting is something he's worried about, but so far, it's never seemed to happen. He remembers lots of the little things that they all did together, or that he did with just one or the other of them.
But if he's really honest with himself, his favorite memory of his parents doesn't actually involve him. And it's always been his favorite, ever since the pain of their deaths had subsided enough for him to start looking back.
He must have been eight or so when it happened - sometime before his parents stopped giving him a bed time. Because he remembers sneaking downstairs to the lower level of their penthouse suite late one night, just because he was awake and didn't feel like lying in a dark room and waiting to fall asleep again. His parents were still up, wandering back and forth between the kitchen and living room. He hadn't dared alert them to his presence, instead hiding in the shadows at the bottom of the staircase. Quiet music was floating through the rooms, and his parents were talking and laughing softly.
His mother came back to the table carrying a bowl of ice cream, and she sat down next to his father, who was finishing off a glass of red wine. They were both ready for bed, his mother in her pink silk pajamas, and his father in his bathrobe and slippers.
He couldn't hear what they were saying over the music, not with the quiet way they were talking. But even at his young age, he could see how happy they were just to be in each other's company. How in love they were. And he just sat there for a few minutes, watching them as they finished eating and drinking.
He remembers his mother standing, her empty bowl in hand as she began to make her way back into the kitchen. But his father stopped her with a hand on her wrist, and a gentle kiss. He took the bowl and set it back on the table, and pulled her out to the open center of the living room, and into his arms. He remembers moving a few steps lower in order to peer around the corner and watch them.
And they began dancing, right there in their pajamas. It wasn't any kind of formal dance - just a relaxed, back and forth sway to the music, and they both wore the smiles to match. He remembers them dancing through two songs, their arms draped around one another as they whispered and laughed and kissed. And he remembers, very vividly, that he simply felt happy, lucky, almost, to be able to sit back in his little corner, and watch them.
He's always sort of regretted the fact that all he remembered after that was waking up in his bed the next morning.
It wasn't until he finally fell in love himself that he understood why he cherishes that memory so dearly. And sometimes, when they're alone and enjoying the music, he pulls his own wife close and dances with her, just for the simple pleasure of holding her in his arms.