We were sitting in our treehouse.
The sky was ablaze with the pale oranges and pinks of dusk. The sun was sinking behind the horizon, gradually draining away the last remnants of daylight.
There were cardboard boxes strewn about the place, half-filled with blankets and cushions, toys, posters, books, the tiny animal figurines you liked to collect -little things to make the treehouse feel more like home.
We were rummaging through these boxes, trying to decide where to put everything; unsurprisingly, we had grossly overpacked, though now that we had gone through the effort of transferring everything from the ground up to the treehouse, we didn't want to take it back down.
We were bickering quietly, arguing over what could stay and what had to go, when my mother came outside, and we could see in her eyes that something was awfully, painstakingly wrong.
She called out to you, asked you to come down. "Come into the kitchen, Johnny," she said softly, "there's something your mother wants to tell you."
With that buoyant smile you always wore, you told me that you would be back in a minute. Then you clambered down the rungs, taking them two at a time. You waved to me from the ground.
You didn't come back.
I held your hand at your father's funeral.