Pockets

I search my purse again, more frantic than the first time. I empty the stack of cards from my wallet, slowly flipping each one, certain I must only be forgetting what my debit card looks like. Surely, I just didn’t put it away in the right spot. I do that, you know. I put things away in the wrong spot all the time. But even if it’s wrong, it’s still in a spot. It’s still findable. And I’ve made habits, you know, my workarounds, I call them. I cannot always tell you what I did do, but I can tell you what I would have done, and that is usually enough. Today, however, it is not enough.

I can feel my chest pick up speed as I look in the zippered pocket at the back of my purse; the one I never open. Inside, I find three coins and a little plastic bear. Crumbs. Dammit. Every other person in this store has a way to pay the bill. I close the zipper and pat every pocket I am wearing in my coat and jeans. I check the pockets I don’t have, on my stomach, chest, forehead. My daughter, ever the sponge, begins to look how I feel: worried. She’ll tell this story a lot: mom promised, but then she forgot.

It’s Saturday. This is supposed to be our redemption day. My work schedule means her daycare schedule is longer than most. She’s the first kid dropped off and the last one picked up. On the way home, she’s asleep within minutes. When we get there, I carry her to bed. If I’m lucky, she’ll wake for a snack and a snuggle. In the morning, we are up with enough time to eat, to dress, to hop in the car, and get to daycare early enough that I don’t miss my start time. I leave her with the strangers I don’t know well enough, strangers who raise her, instead of me. I tell myself we’ll get time together soon.

I do not tell myself I’ll inevitably ruin the time we get. Idealism does not love an absent mind, so leaves it out. How very comedic: even I forget that I forget.

I can hear the woman in line behind me clear her throat again. It’s been a minute since I began my search, and line-ups tend to dilate the clocks of the impatient. The cashier practices her empathetic stance; I can see her consider her options, check the length of the line. This is a dollar store, I need to pay her dollars, and I can’t. It’s just a plastic wand, and some cereal, but these are the promises I gave her today. How can we leave here without them?

You should have seen her face when she saw this little wand: sparkles embedded in silver plastic, a blue gem mimicked into the top. Three ribbons from the nape of its neck.

“I’m three!” she squeals when I count the ribbons with her.

In the cereal aisle, she weighs her options. Careful consideration must be had: rainbow circles or sugary dots? We wander, she picks, and insists she can hold them both at the same time. Her little arms barely make it, but they do their job. This feels very important. It is very important. I consider getting dish soap, it’s cheaper here. I eye the stickers I know she would love but usher her past them before she sees. I promised her lunch after this. Lunch. How can I pay for lunch if I can’t even pay for…

“Pardon? Oh sure, yes I can step aside. Honey just hold on to those okay. Just wait.” Think, think.  

I want to run out to the car and check between the seats, under the floor mats, hell I’d even crack the hood to check there too. Sometimes I am convinced I have a second personality: one which hides things from the version I am right now. What did she do with it?

Blaming this other self gives me brief reprieve from the truth in my daughter’s eyes. She’s little, but she knows. We won’t be leaving with these things. Others walk by us with their purchases. The door’s bell rings as another customer enters, and again when another customer leaves. It’s busy here today. The world, as it turns out, is full of people who can get what they need when they need it. People who put their things away in the right spot every time.

I crouch down beside her, putting her eyes in front of mine.

“Hey babe,” I say. “We can’t get these yet. We can come back for them, okay? We can come back.” Lucky for me or the store’s inhabitants, this one’s intuitive. Years in the future I’ll have a different three-year-old, one less concerned and more prone to defiance, more prone to screaming. Not this one, though. She’s all I have now, and she’s inexplicably tuned to me and so she gets it. She pouts her lip and drops her head. Her little hand reaches out, her fingers grip the wand in a final goodbye before she gives it to me.

“Cereal too, babe,” I say softly.

I place both items on the counter with an apologetic look at the cashier’s quick glance. I try to think of a worse moment, but nothing comes. I do this. I ruin things. I have not found a workaround for that.

I reach out and find her little hand is ready to take mine, and she grips as hard as I do. The bell above the door jingles as we walk through it, and the sun shines high above us as we step outside. I do not know where my card is, or how these moments will affect her, but I do know we will be okay. We have to be okay. We do not have cereal and wands today, but we will get them next time. What we do have now, is each other. I have a little life to hold and she’s got a mother who loves her. For today, that will have to be enough.

“Let’s go home,” I say. It’s time to go home.