| |
The child is afraid of the dark.
She says she is afraid to go to sleep. She weeps.
It is after her bedtime, of course, and after her younger
sister's, and the baby is fussing and needs to be put down,
and you are tired yourself, and would like a few minutes of
silence in which to attempt to retrieve your life from the
clutches of motherhood before you, too, must go to bed.
But the child is weeping, her shoulders shake, and you notice
how large and frail and newly thin the shoulder blades are
beneath her nightgown. She is your daughter, your firstborn,
a tall seven-year-old with quick fingers and blond tangles,
who loves novels, symphonies, and mud, who claims tonight
she is afraid to go to sleep in her bed beside her little
sister with her door open and the night light on and Brahms’s
lullaby playing on the stereo.
"What are you scared of?" you ask, as you try to
evaluate whether this isn't just another ploy to wring a few
more seconds from the day.
"Monsters," she says.
And before you see the need to think, you answer as you were
once answered, "There are no monsters."
NEXT.:
|
|
