I can't take my eyes off of him. Wherever we are he seems to shimmer and reflect light, catching my eye, me the captivated crow and him a mobile of spinning silver utensils. But it is not the suface of him that's reflecting the light; it is something within him. I've never met someone who's mind works in such perfect parallel to mine. Saturday night dinner party: red wine, Pictionary. We are halfway around the board ahead of the other team, and that couple is living together.

He tells me I'm beautiful, but he doesn't even need to say the words because I can tell what he thinks by the way that he looks at me.

I bring my flute over, to meet his piano. He suggests it - something that I dream of, think of suggesting with shy hesitation, but always refrain from asking. I lay back and listen to him practice the scores of the sheet music I brought over. Hand over hand, over ivory keys, and the music fills my head, my body, like food, finally feeling full after all these years of hungering.

But still, though the temptation is there, I will not let myself be washed away into the rhythms and grace notes of his calloused cracked hands. I leave him at dawn and drive up the valley, following a rainbow of falling leaves. I spend the day smiling, in my element, selling admission tickets for the reining competition. A coordinater walks by and hands me a cowboy hat. I pull my hair out of a pony tail and put the hat on my head, pull my sweater a little lower on my shoulders, and revel in the cool morning breeze moving in from the arena. Cantering hooves. Creaking leather.

Thanksgiving. Grampa seems so small next to me on the couch after dinner. He knows so much, but what does he really know of us? Is this my fault or his? Now that I am adult the responsibility falls on me just as much as him, but how can I forget the example he set in the past? Will I one day regret not really getting to know him today?

Go! he whispers, while I'm holding onto him in the driveway. I have to leave quickly, not look back, or else I have to run back to kiss him on the cheek one more time. One more time.