Whenever I close my eyes, face to the sun, once my brain gets used to the orange glow behind my eyelids, the movie starts to play.

Always the same one.

Always Aubrey. Chubby fingers, sticky with the melting chocolate shell she insists on pulling off her ice cream to eat first. And I don’t care how much mess I’ll have to clean from my car or how much will never come out. All I care about is Aubrey, her hair blowing in her face, into her ice cream, as we drive along the Muscoot Reservoir in the August sun with the windows down, Smashing Pumpkins playing on the tape deck.

Aubrey messing up the words, earnestly singing about the bravest day she’s ever known.

Aubrey stunned when the ice cream falls off her cone into her lap, and I tell her it’s fine to eat with her hands. She can wipe them on my sleeve, and it’s fine. It’s fine. Who cares about clean shirts? Who cares if her shorts are vanilla now?

My mom does!

Who cares what your mom thinks?

She makes a funny snickering sound when she laughs at me, eyes tearing.

Aubrey squinting when the sun gets low in the sky, and we are almost back to her house, and I promise we can drive around the loop one more time.

Aunt Frey, did you dream about me last night? I dreamed about you.

Yeah, I say, every time I watch this memory in my brain.

That zebra was big.

Very big, I say, because I want Aubrey to believe I’m with her in dreams, so she’ll never have a nightmare and think she’s all alone.

Did you dream about me? I dreamed about you.

Did you dream about me? I dreamed about you.

Did you dream? About me?

Did you dream?

Did you?

I can still see each freckle hatching under the skin of her peeling, sunburned nose, that crooked chocolate-stained smile, the frizzy halo of her windblown hair.

The sun is setting and she’s beautiful.

The sun is setting, and I miss her.

It’s setting and I’m so certain I love her more than life itself.

But then the light dims, that orange fades to gray, and I can’t see her anymore.

I’m gone.