He left when I was a child, nothing said. I didn’t think much of it. I was concerned
with my plastic food and how I was going to prepare that good green bean, with a
side of ketchup, and a “warm” cherry pie with my artificial kitchen. I didn’t
understand. But she cried.
She cried and cried. The roses he had just got her last week for Valentine’s Day were
dreary and wilted. She couldn’t toss them though. I tried not to care. I would stop
playing with my many toys to try to comfort her, crying out—
“Mama, what’s wrong?”
Mama slugged her blush bunny slippers across the old oak floor, as I sat watching
her just stare at the silent phone—pacing back and forth so slow. Her make-up had
faded and was almost gone from rubbing her face. But Mama was still in those same blue
flannel PJ’s he got her last Christmas. She hasn’t changed since he left.
But some things you can’t tell children.
But I saw him slam the door. I saw her immediate smack across the face from the wind that came from the door slam. They always tell you to protect the eyes of your little one. But there are also some things
that cannot be shielded. I knew things were crummy, but I focused on my baby doll
that was missing one arm. I knew Mama hurt, and so her baby girl saw pain for the
first time.
But it was sunny outside. Everything seemed normal. I was five. Nothing seemed
different until Mama couldn’t get out of bed in the mornings to make my
cinnamon apple oatmeal and so I ate potato chips for a week.
