Heat Lightning and Strawberry Shortcake

     I've never been one to remember things in great detail--that has always been my sister's job. She tells the stories and they are what become my memories. But every so often there will be something that my mind will hold onto with unusual clarity. One of these rich, vivid memories is one I have from one of my family's early visits to my grandparent's house in Alabama. We had driven from New York that summer and I was young--maybe six years old. On this particular night I remember waking up from a bad nightmare, one of the many that seemed to plague me along with some kind of insomnia through those years. I remember being scared and unhappy, with the dream residue hovering just beyond my consciousness. Hot and restless, I didn't want to go back to sleep until the fear faded somewhat, so I crawled out of the bottom bunk where I was sleeping that night. My sister above me and my brothers in the bunk bed across the room all slept, peaceful and happy, leaving me alone in my wakefulness. That's when I went to seek out the comfort of company.
     I remember stepping out of the house onto the wide screened in porch, into the sticky heat of an Alabama summer night. My parents and grandparents were sitting there, Mom and Grammy on the porch swing and Dad and Grandpa in adirondack chairs, talking while enjoying a dessert of strawberry shortcake. I don't remember what I said to them, all I know is that I ended up on the swing between Grammy and my mom with a helping of strawberry shortcake in my hand. As the adults took up their conversation again I remember feeling not only utterly secure, but also special and grown up somehow, to be sitting up late with them. Who knows what they were talking about, I don't remember any of the conversation except for one point when they paused to watch the heat lightning out over the lake. It silently flickered, briefly illuminating the clouds here, then there, dancing in the heavy heat and etching itself into my memory.
     I am watching it again tonight as it jumps from cloud to cloud in flickering bolts, or as it flashes white just behind a great bank of clouds, which are sharply outlined for an instant before returning to the same black as the rest of the night. The lightning is the same. The heat is the same. I am up late again, but this time of my own choice, as I savor the memory it brings of childhood, simplicity, security, and shortcake.