On a Dirt Road, At the End of the Day

We stood with the sun setting at our backs, the damp dirt road stretched before us. Somehow it was just her and I at the end of the day and somehow neither of us minded.

The air was cool but not cold. Spring was here, at least for today, and it came as it always does here in Texas: without warning, with no slow thaw, with no guarantee that it would stay. I don’t know that I’ll ever grow accustomed to such a place as this.

With the warmth came the sudden panic that we were behind before the season even started. The seeds are in the mail but the air is warm and the ground is workable and so why aren’t I planting? It comes every spring, but still.

I thought about goats, too, that day… how nice it would be to milk our own… how nice for the children to handle more animals.

But at the end of the day, on that red dirt road, I stood with my back to the setting sun and I watched her and everything else faded to the background. If my heart could have feet and walk away it would be her, red pigtails and blue eyes sparkling, unsteady feet turning only to know I was there. These are the moments that break me in two and make me wonder why I wonder at all.

I didn’t have the camera that day; a picture would have been unsatisfactory anyway. The day was ending, the sun was setting, and I don’t think I’ll forget the image of her walking on down that dirt road any time soon.