I am not quite six-years-old. The memory is a snippet—like a flashback shown in a movie.
I come home from school feeling unsure of what I might find.
A few nights before, Dad picked me up out of bed in the middle of the night,
wrapped me in a warm blanket, and carried me next door. I was in a foggy headed
half-dream state and I shivered as he crossed the lawn with me in his arms. He
laid me down in a little bed with crisp, cold, white sheets upstairs at the
Elenze’s house, and kissed me gently on the forehead. I wasn’t afraid. I felt
safe, and soon was cozy warm, and fast asleep again.
I knock on the front storm door of our house, looking to my
left and right to make sure no one is watching me. Why did I knock on the door
of my own house? Mom opens the door with a big warm smile—the warmest and most
inviting smile I ever remember her having. I feel really good inside and happy
to see that smile. Her big teeth are shining. One has a little gold dot
filling—an old cavity. Her upper gums show just like mine will when I am grown.
She opens the door wider and takes me in her arms, squeezing me passionately,
and then asks how my day at school was.
But, instead of answering her, I ask, “Is she here?”
Mom smiles brilliantly again and answers, whisper-like,
“Yes.”
I look past her shoulder toward the hallway where the
bedrooms are located, scared to ask the next question, but somehow find the
courage because Mom is so happy. “Can I see her?”
“May I,” she answers softly, “. . . and yes, you may.”
I shrug out of my coat and drape it over the back of one of
the kitchen table chairs, and then head to the hallway. I go as quietly as I
know how, Mom not far behind. I open the door to the first room on the left and
tiptoe in. There, in the crib Mom and Dad set up a few weeks earlier, is my
new baby sister, just a small bump in the middle of the crib mattress. Her head
is turned toward the wall so I can’t see her face. I look up at Mom who stands
in the doorway with that great smile still on her face and say, “I can’t see her.”
Mom helps me pull the crib away from the wall so I can have
a better look. I can’t believe Mom is being so accommodating as usually
everything is so impossible. I look at Mom with wonderment and awe. When I turn
my attention back to my new sister, her little lips protrude out. She sighs
audibly making a little groaning sound at the same time. Her tiny bits of hair
stand straight up on her head, just little wisps of blond.
I immediately fall in love with her though I am a little
disappointed that I can’t play with her right away. For a while I will call her “the baby” and she will remain in the background of my life until her
personality starts to emerge. And then, she will become Susan—a beautiful girl,
and now the beautiful woman she is today.
Copyright DJ Anderson 2003
