I stir the soup on the stove for my mother as she punches the highest keys of the piano, matching their pitch. The light here is gold and wimpled as a river trout. It's alive and pirouettes a warm caress down the old wood banister, almost as if the fireplace with the broken chimney could really burn. My father lies on the bare hardwood floor and draws things that do not yet exist. His markers screech against the drafting paper, reeking familiar acrid ink. I wonder what colors smell like. I wonder what it's like to build a home. That autumn, I craft one under an oak tree for the fairies in the woods that I don't really believe in but still hope are real. I do it just in case. I keep my dreams warm.