I found the cassette two summers after he passed. Side B began with the track he always hummed while cooking—and suddenly, the whole kitchen was there again.
The handwriting was unmistakably his: hurried capitals, a blue pen running dry, and no track list—only the words ‘for the road’. I waited three days before finding a player.
When Orange Moon began, memory stopped behaving like memory. The kitchen light was on. A wooden spoon tapped the edge of a pot. He was humming half a beat behind the song, as he always did.
I used to think recommendations were about taste. Now I think they are small acts of preservation: a way of saying this helped me remain myself, and perhaps it can do the same for you.
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