Stranded

You scan the parking lot as soon as you peel away from the burbling stream of children pouring out of the school entrance. You spot my car in the lines of waiting cars, and just for an instant, there and gone, a look of relief flashes on your little girl face. But the expression winks out at once, replaced by a frown. You let your bulging backpack weigh you down, so that you are slouched and shuffling as you amble towards me and my car. It’s been nearly a week now, and you still haven’t forgiven me – not yet – though I think you’re getting close.

You open the back door, dump your backpack on the backseat, and clamber in. My smile and chirping “Hi, sweetie!” bounce off you as you arrange yourself carefully on the seat and drape the seatbelt across your chest and click it in. I turn around to face front, but continue watching you through the rearview mirror. You only graduated from your car seat last year. Divested of that bulky, plastic, cushioned appurtenance, you seem so small now against the gray fabric backdrop of the backseat. A familiar feeling washes over me: of joy and repose, streaked with just a tinge of heartbreak, at how small and beautiful you are. A familiar feeling, and yet still, always surprising.

The cars ahead of us move forward in fits and stops, car length by car length, taking on their young passengers, until at last we are at the head of the line and clear to exit. I maneuver the car onto the street and we are on our way home.

“How was school, sweetie?” I ask. Your answer was, of course, clipped: “Good.”

I have to keep trying, though. “Anything happen? What did you do during recess? Did you play with Tricia and Megumi?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“Played in the slide.”

Hmmm. So, maybe not so close as I’d hoped. After you had tantalized me last night by letting me read you a bedtime story after having refused for three nights.

But then you add, unasked, “Some of the boys kept sliding down and then they kept crawling back up the slide instead of going around. We didn’t get many turns.” – and I brighten up.

“That wasn’t fair,” I say, pricking my ear for a hoped-for response.

But you remain silent, and I sigh, wearying of your stuttering, two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance towards me. But then that, in other circumstances, is one of the blessings of you, isn’t it? That wider, more expansive sense of time that you have that sometimes forces me to step out of my frenzied tempo of life, so filled with drop dead deadlines and constricted minutes and things that needed to be done yesterday. You make me match your pace, slow down to your more measured, more deliberate, more hesitant rhythms.

It had been a deadline at work, dumped on me last minute, that had delayed me in leaving the office to pick you up on Monday, five days ago. I had tried to rush to you to make up for time, but several cars ahead of me had piled into each other in a string of fender benders that slowed traffic to a crawl. It was in a state of growing agitation that I inched forward in my car and watched the dashboard clock as it ticked slowly to 3:00 o’clock, then touched it, then stretched on past it. I had wanted to call the school to let them know, but when I scrounged around inside my purse for my cell phone, in a moment of face-blanching consternation, I found that I had forgotten it at work in my hurry to leave.

I finally reached the near-empty school parking lot, driving in slowly, taking care not to tear into it. I saw you sitting on a bench along the wall, hugging your backpack, your face pinched and tear-streaked, your mouth downturned in an inconsolable little pout that tore me to pieces. Your teacher, Ms. Wati, was sitting with you. I parked and ran to you at once, but I had to hug you and your backpack together since you kept holding it in front of you. I explained, to you and to Ms. Wati. Ms. Wati was annoyed and disapproving; she cautioned me how important it was to be on time, especially with younger, sensitive children such as yourself. But she is an adult, and well-versed in the vicissitudes of life; despite her reproof, I am sure she understood.

You did not, and you were unforgiving. And I understood. It was just forty-two minutes that I made you wait, but, as I knew, time passes for you differently than it does for me. Forty-two minutes is barely anything to me, just an instant that flies by. But to you, it must have been endless – and horrible. There must have been ten or fifteen terrifying minutes there, after you saw the last of the cars drive off, when you felt you had been left behind, when you imagined you had been abandoned forever. I quite understand why you have been so hurt and intractable. It didn’t matter that it was the first time I had ever been late, that it was one transgression after years of reliable constancy; indeed, the breaking of the pattern might have made it worse – like the breaking of a promise, like the cracking of a foundation that once seemed solid.

I turn into our street. We are nearing home. I say, still trying, still in a cheery tone, “It’s Friday. Tomorrow morning, we’re visiting grandpa and grandma.”

You say, “I remember.”

“They’ll be so happy to see you. Are you looking forward to it?”

“Yes.”

I turn into our driveway and park the car. I get out and open the door for you. You unstrap yourself, climb down, pull your backpack after you. We walk to the front door in silence and I unlock the door and open it. You enter our house. I pause for a moment, and think about how these little moments – even the wretched ones in which it seems things have unraveled between us – are the threads we are slowly weaving together, that are being stranded together in a skein, binding me to you forever. You may not know this yet, but I do. 

I walk in, following you.

(February 2013)