When Paul and I were children we would sit outside his grandmother’s house making mud pies, we would sit there for hours, splashing and fighting in the thick cool dirt, the sun drying the mud on our tiny fingertips. When I would walk the block back to my parent’s house I would leave a trail of crusted footprints behind me. I always enjoyed waking up in the morning and looking outside my bedroom window to find the muddy prints still there, allowing me to follow the prints back to Paul’s and do it all over again. Paul and I had known each other since before we were born, our mothers grew up together, they planned there futures together, from how old they would be when they got married, to raising there children together. They had gotten pregnant around the same time even married at the same time, their bond was unbreakable. My mother would tell me story’s about how her and Margret would lounge on our houses front lawn drinking gold lemonade from cheap plastic cup’s. They would make a tray of sandwiches setting them under a giant sun umbrella, sometimes pulling the foldable lawn chairs together allowing their massive stomachs to touch, then sing a tune about Paul and I having play time. My mother had me a week before Paul, when Paul was born he was premature by at least a month. His mother was driving home one night and was hit by a semi-truck, the doctors had kept her alive using life support, they didn’t want to deliver him early but had no choice but to. What once was a vessel for his life became a dark death trap, they operated saving Paul as his mothers life slipped away, it’s like they traded a life for a life.

His father had tried his best to take care of him when he was a baby but he couldn’t stand the sight of him. He had Margret’s blue eyes, her plump pink lips, and petal soft skin; he couldn’t bare the memories that would play through his head at night. The first time they made love as husband and wife, going on exotic vacations to unknown lands, waking up in the morning to Margret’s whispered humming, all of this had been ripped away from him to quickly. My mother told me that one day Mr. Fredrick’s got really sad and decided to go see Mrs. Fredrick’s in heaven, when I asked her if Paul was going with she dropped to her knee’s, the fabric of her jeans screaming for some wiggle room, she looked me in the eyes, tear’s dwelling around the rim’s.
“ Paul is going to be here with us hunny, his Grandmother and I are going to take care of him.”
She plastered on a fake smile, the whites of her teeth glowing through her bright red lipstick, and then returned to the mound of dishes collected from my father who ate every ten minuets. She used to hum and sway with the water as it flowed out of the silver faucet, but now she stands still, not even making the slightest movement, all but her arm’s are statues. Sometimes she would stand at the sink for hour’s stareing out the pasty window, her black curl’s perfectly in place against her thin shoulder blades, even if there weren’t any dishes she would still be there. It was like she was waiting for something, something she knew would never come.