They were getting ready to swim when Tyson pointed to her leg. ‘What’s that Grandma?’ A jagged strip of pigmentless skin over her kneecap. She remebered back past Norm and the kids and grandkids—this smallest one always with the questions—to a ballroom that had long since been knocked down. They’d danced all night and she’d understood, in his strong arms, things she’d never understood before.
They left the dance on his Vincent. He told her to hang on tight. They sped through the emptying streets without a care until the rain started. It was sudden. He hit wet tram-tracks on a corner, taking his back tyre from under them. She smacked into the kerb hard enough to split her knee. They’d laughed, even though her leg stung like billy-o and the bike’s cracked sump meant she’d have to finish the trip home alone by tram. They promised to meet at the dance the next week. But when her mother saw the state of her she forbade it, only half believing the story about falling on stairs. Lily never saw him again. She smiled at her grandson. ‘Just an old war wound. C’mon Ty. Last one in——.’
small stories about love 