My father would fall into the past whenever he looked through an open window. He’d be seeing a thin line of beach there and a pale sky the same colour as his eyes. There would be heat, too, and then the woman who was his wife laughing before a hotel mirror, her white hands with the red nails clutching a silver hairbrush.
Sometimes I would stand at the window beside him. And take in the sparkling water, the Palm Tree lounge on the patio serving sky and surf, the handsome suitor wearing a white linen suit escorting the woman to a table.
My father would be in the bar by then, not wanted at the banquet. And the small girl that I was would be brushing her hair before the mirror after everyone had left. 