Money Grows on Trees
“Money doesn’t grow on trees, Mikal!” echoed my mother’s voice in the back of my mind. A flea market north of Brooklyn and a charcoal leather-bound journal worth more than the few dollars I’d accumulated that one autumn. You can imagine raking leaves off of the communal path which was the closest to a front yard any of us folks had - on a road in a city where the grass is not known to grow, my selling point was rather debile. Though times became tough and my toes would peak through my socks like worms to an apple, I remembered her scent. It smelled of rich fragrance, strong in musk and vanilla that would dance around her almost like an aura. Like a ghost follows a broken soul, my nose would follow her scent through to the kitchen where garlic and onion, ingredients with pungency she only cooked to fill the house with an aroma other than the moulding ceiling in the single bathroom by the back door. Wrapping my arms around her lower half and sighing at the warmth she radiated, everything seemed whole at that moment.
