He stopped crying. He hopped all the way to the other side, laughing. After that, it became my ritual. Every first day of school, I drew the grid on my sidewalk, right outside my house, and then another one at my crossing corner. It settled their nerves.

But my knees eventually gave out on me. By June of 1991, the joint pain was pure hell. The doctor told me I couldn’t stand on the hard asphalt anymore. I had to retire.

That September was the first time in thirty years that I didn’t have a reason to get up at dawn. I felt completely useless. Arthur made me a cup of tea, and I sat by the window, feeling like a stranger in my own neighborhood.

But when I walked out to get the mail that morning, my stomach dropped.

There it was. Drawn in bright yellow chalk on my front sidewalk. Ten perfect squares, and a little lopsided sun in the corner. I stood there staring, my eyes filling with tears. I thought Arthur had done it to make me feel better.

But when I went inside and asked him, he looked at me with total confusion. He swore on his mother’s memory that he hadn’t touched any chalk.

That was the beginning of the mystery. Every single September, for thirty-five years, the grid would appear. Some years it was dry and bright. Some years, like today, the rain tried to wash it away, but it always returned.

I tried staying up late to watch. I tried sitting on the porch with a flashlight. But I always missed them. I would fall asleep at 3 AM, and by 6 AM, the yellow lines would be glowing on the gray concrete.

Arthur died in 1998. The house became incredibly quiet after that. My friends moved away, and the old school was torn down and replaced by a modern building with security fences. The neighborhood changed, but the chalk remained.

It was the only anchor I had left to my past. It was the only proof that my thirty years of service actually mattered to someone.

This morning, the rain had been relentless. It started at dawn, a cold, heavy Ohio downpour that turned the streets into rivers. I looked out my window at 7 AM and saw nothing but wet, bare concrete. The grid had been washed to ghosts.

I felt a dull, heavy ache in my chest. I thought, well, that is finally that. Thirty-five years is a long run. Whoever was doing it had finally given up, or moved away, or died. I sat in my armchair and tried to accept that the past was truly gone.

Then, at noon, the rain stopped. The clouds broke, and a sliver of watery sunlight hit my front yard. I walked to the kitchen to make some toast, and that is when I saw her through the window.