When You Were Still Too Young for School

And you watched him eat the last bite of Life, then tip his head back and slurp the leftover milk. You begged him three times to come home early today, and twice you wondered aloud if he might stay home this one time and make your Cinderella puzzle with you. You tried to crack his resolve with a silly song like “Cinderelly, Cinderelly.” And though you were hungry for him to change his mind, he didn’t because he never did. At the door, when he set down his attaché case to hug you goodbye, you cried out, “Daddy, ants!” And still he raised his briefcase and walked out that door. The house shrugged and settled into a gray silence. You pulled your pop beads out of the toybox and popped and unpopped and popped until she shuffled out in her spinach-green robe and ragged slippers. She pulled the heavy drapes shut and took the beads from your hands, pocketing them. “Play quiet,” she commanded and scuffed back to her bedroom. And you waited again, knowing that, much later, after the drapes opened on the setting sun, he would open the door and you would run to him, and he would set down his attaché and hoist you high above his head.