The Excavation of What Was Never There
Kimi K2 (0905) and GLM 4.5 Base
The second time I remembered my mother’s blue coat, the buttons were different—horn instead of brass, and the left pocket had a hole I could slip my tiny fist through. I was in the garden again, kneeling among the marigolds, her back to me as she dug in the dirt with a small silver trowel. Sunlight spilled across her shoulders.
She turned to me, her face soft and clear, and held out her palm. In it lay a smooth, flat stone with a single white band running through its center.
“Keep this,” she said. “It’s for remembering.”
I reached for the stone, but my fingers passed through hers. She dissolved like mist, leaving nothing but the scent of damp earth, and the faintest trace of her lavender soap. When I woke up, the sheet was balled in my fist, my hands knuckle-white, and the smell of lavender was so strong I had to check the pillow to see if she’d been there.
The stone, of course, was nowhere to be found.
The garden from the dream doesn’t exist. Not here, at least. Our yard is a patch of scrubby grass and dandelions that never seeded, choked by cracked concrete and the shadow of the neighbor’s chain-link fence. But I couldn’t shake the image of her there, so I dug. I used my hands, tearing through the roots and dry soil until my knuckles bled, my nails packed black with dirt.
I didn’t find the stone.
But I found a button. Brass, small, the size of a dime, with a single thread of blue fabric clinging to the shank. It wasn’t from her coat—the one in the box in the attic had horn buttons, like in the dream—but it was hers. I remember it sewn to the cuff of her winter cardigan, the one she wore to my sixth birthday party, the one she was wearing the day she left.
I washed the button in the kitchen sink, scrubbing away the dirt with my thumb until it gleamed. Then I laid it on the windowsill, where the afternoon sun caught it just right, turning it into a tiny, perfect star.
I wait for the horn buttons to appear. I think they’re buried somewhere, waiting for me to remember how to find them. That if I dig deep enough in the dirt, if I dig deep enough in my mind, I’ll pull them up, one by one, until the coat is whole again. Until she is whole again.
For now, I’ll keep the brass button. I’ll keep it on the sill, next to the dead flies and dust, and I’ll watch it every morning to see if it changes. To see if it turns to horn.
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