sketchbook stories: annapolis

stop me when i'm passing by

Cornhill Street. A row house, three stories tall. Hallways as narrow as shoeboxes. Where I lived the first three years of my life. My father’s sailboat moored in Chesapeake Bay at the end of the street. The chime of the ice cream truck at twilight and I run outside, barefoot, in my polka-dot pajamas.

And now, when I bite into an orange creamsicle, I wonder: is this what I had all those sultry summers nights so long ago, when I squeezed my mother’s hand in sticky delight? I can never be certain, for memory is so often an unreliable narrator.

illustration by my mother, Karyl (Shenton) Bannister

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