when I was still small

The drive back from your aunt's always ended after dark, and you always meant to stay awake for it. The highway lights came through the window in slow orange stripes, the radio turned down to almost nothing, your parents talking in the front in the low voices they saved for night driving, words you never caught and never needed to.

You used to pretend to be asleep when the car pulled in, so your dad would carry you up the stairs. You think he knew. He carried you anyway, every single time, and to this day you have never slept as well as you slept in the back of that car at nine years old.