Little Girl

LITTLE GIRL

Peggy Michael-Rush

               It’s a bizarre and unnerving truth that your life can be going on along, like a straight, boring line. No bumps, no hiccups, no inspiration or jumps in the horizontal. Flatline. Which is ok, mind you, because that means that nothing is earth-shattering, nerve-stressing or devastating, too. It also means, of course, that nothing is exciting. Just. Flat. But then. One moment. One thing, one simple, seemingly ordinary thing, and whoop! Your feet hit a banana peel and you see your toes in the forefront of the sky. And your first thought is head injury.

           I ran away that day. I needed a day away, alone, out of town. Just for me. And when that happens, I inevitably end up in a bookstore. In my case, living on the Plains, a decent bookstore is two hours east in Lincoln. My new, rural lifestyle has made me a bit jumpy in the city, but I overcome that to spend a day inhaling the sweet aroma of words on a physical page. Call me old fashioned. I still love that smell. I’m instantly at ease when I walk into a bookstore, and strangely, my bowels always move. I’ve often joked that if I was constipated I just needed to go to the library or a bookstore. Something about books moves me. 

           I was in my favorite used bookstore petting the resident cat before I made my exit. I opened the door and stepped out into the street, nearly knocking over a person. A child. A little girl. 

           “Oh! I am so sorry,” I said politely, glad that the soda they were carrying didn’t collide with my body.

           “It’s ok,” she said, proceeding forward in the opposite direction.  I looked around, expecting a parent to be running to catch up with her. There was no one. She didn’t seem panicked or lost, but walking slowly, almost meditatively.  Should I do something? Should I ask if she’s ok? I turned around, but she wasn’t there. I looked across the street. Not there. Did she go into one of the shops? Should I look for her? 

           Surely she found whom she was with, she’s ok. Right? 

 A soft breeze was blowing. It was warm but not hot, just that pleasant, brief time as spring is so fully here that you know it’s safe to put your winter clothes away and get out the shorts and T-shirts. A robin landed on the sidewalk right in front of me.

           “Well, hello!” I said to him (or her). She chirped. I don’t know what made me look back, but I did, and as I did, the child was there again, looking at me, sipping her fountain drink.   We smiled awkwardly, but I didn’t turn away. Neither did she. I looked down at the robin who chirped again. 

           “Ok, whatever.” I said out loud, not the least bit self-conscious that I was talking to a bird. I turned around and the child stood still, grinning at me.   I shrugged as if to say I don’t know why I’m coming your way but here I come and walked slowly toward her.

           “Hi.” 

           She laughed. Again, my eyes combed the street, looking for whom she might belong to. 

           “Is your mom or dad around?” I asked her. 

           She just shook her head, still grinning. She shrugged. “They’re dead,” she said matter-of-factly. But it’s ok. They were old.

           I physically straightened. “I’m so sorry, is there someone with you, someone that might be looking for you?” 

           She shrugged, chewing on her straw. I sighed heavily. I couldn’t just leave her. I looked up at the people coming out of Jimmy John’s across the street. Others were hanging outside the Greek gyro place. My stomach growled. “Can I just walk with you, and maybe we can find your adult?” I said, leaning forward a bit to get closer to her level. Her eyes were a startling blue, with a dark line around the iris. Gorgeous. She was wearing a blue shirt and the color made her eyes shine.

           She shrugged. “If you want to,” she said, the straw still in her mouth. I don’t know how she was getting anything through there, the plastic was chewed and flattened. 

           “I want to,” and I took her hand, which she didn’t resist, in fact she firmly squeezed my hand in hers as we strolled toward the corner. I looked around, trying to see if anyone was frantically looking for a child. I decided we’d walk around the block; I assumed she wasn’t so bold as to cross this city traffic by herself.

           “You’re not watching where you’re going,” she said. “You’re going to miss everything.”

           I stopped and turned to look at her.

           “What am I going to miss?”

           “Everything!” she said urgently. 

           I shook my head. She was sweet. Precocious, even. “You’ll also fall down if you don’t watch out,” she added.

           “But I want to find your adult, someone must be looking for you.” 

           “No one’s looking for me,” she said, “but you found me.” 

           “Someone must be looking for you.”

           “Nope, but isn’t it great that you found me?” 

           “Well, yes, but I don’t live here, and we need to find where you belong, someone is going to be worried about you,” I squeezed her hand.

           There was a wooden bench nearby. “Let’s sit a minute,” I said and pulled her toward the bench while I figured out what to do. Should I call the police? I looked around to see if there happened to be a cop around. Nope. 

           We sat. I looked at the street we’d turned onto. People. Some were looking down at their phones, nearly colliding with others on the sidewalk. There was a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, with a dirty sleeping bag wrapped around him. He had a vacant look about him, as he was unaware of his surroundings.  Someone stooped over and put a wad of bills in his cup that sat next to him. He didn’t flinch. A young mother walked past him with her little boy and the boy tugged on his mother’s hand toward the man. I saw her scolding him, pulling him away from the man’s presence. The little boy yanked his hand out of his mother’s and grabbed the Jimmy John’s bag she was carrying. 

           “Tommy! That’s our lunch!” He pulled the smaller of the two sandwiches out of the bag, with a couple of napkins and handed it back to her. Before she could reach him, the little boy boldly walked to the bedraggled man and held out the sandwich and the napkins. The man seemed to be jolted out of a daydream, as if he hadn’t been aware that there were people around. He tentatively reached for the sandwich and took it into his crusted, dirty hands and nodded. The little boy smiled with his whole face and skipped back to his mother.

           She scolded him again. “What about your lunch? what are you going to eat now?” she said. The little boy shrugged and looked up at her. 

           “I’m not that hungry anyway,” and they kept walking. I saw the woman look back a bit fearfully at the man on the sidewalk, but when she turned around, a faint smile teased her face. 

           “That was sweet,” the little girl said. I laughed again, unaware that she’d noticed the scene.  “See?” 

           “See what?” 

           “Just see.” 

           Ok. We sat in silence, and I decided that after a while I would call the police and report an unaccompanied child. But for now, I liked her company. She was soothing, somehow. An old soul, perhaps. I liked her. I liked her a lot. I didn’t worry that someone was frantically looking for her, for some reason. I know when my daughter was that young, I would be frantic whenever she was out of my sight in a busy place. But it was as if … it sounds crazy, but it was as if time was suspended. Put on hold. And here we were. 

           Her parents were dead. I smiled down at her as she sipped on the chewed-up straw. She didn’t seem traumatized, but was very self-assured, peaceful and fearfully trusting. I couldn’t leave her; she might run into strangers who would take advantage of her trust. 

           “Are you sad about your parents?” I asked, trying to make conversation. 

           Her shining eyes looked up at me. “Sometimes. I don’t think they were really happy, so maybe they’re happy now.” 

           Wow. “Well, I bet they’d rather be with you,” I said.

           “Maybe. But they were with me, and they weren’t happy. They were always scared, and I couldn’t help them not be scared. It’s like Alice in the rabbit hole—maybe once you go down the hole, you’re not so scared anymore.” 

           She snuggled closer to me. I didn’t know what to make of her. I thought of my own parents, recently deceased. My father was a difficult man to love, in fact, I’d be hard-pressed to say that I did love him. He couldn’t love anyone else. He was so critical of all of us kids, never satisfied. Mom did her best with him, she loved him, though I often wondered how she did it. He wasn’t any less critical of her. But my mother was kind. She thought children needed to be seen and not heard, mind you. She wasn’t overly affectionate, but she did things to express her love. She sewed me clothes. Hosted birthday parties, graduation parties. Helped me move various times. She witnessed my daughter’s birth. I missed her. She died soon after my father, we figured, from a broken heart. I was never able to be close to her, but I missed her.

           “She was scared.” 

           “What?? Who?” 

           “Mom.” Oh, right. Ok.

           “What was she afraid of?”

           “I don’t know, but I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t make her feel better when she cried. She would go away, and I couldn’t find her.”

           I sniffed and cleared my throat. What was this? Why were my eyes moist? Who was this kid? 

           “Are you afraid?” she said bluntly, leaning up toward me, invading my personal space. 

           “Afraid?  Are you?”

           “I asked you first.” She grinned and revealed a perfect row of tiny white teeth. 

           I shrugged. “Well, sure, I get scared…”

           “But are you afraid? Are you afraid of getting lost? Are you afraid of being happy? Are you afraid of opening your eyes? Are you afraid of being loved?” She looked around as if we were having a casual conversation about Dora the Explorer or the Puppy Patrol.

           “Why are you asking me that?” I croaked out, astonished by my own tears. 

           She put her hand on top of mine, resting on my knee. “I get scared, too.” Her eyes were wide open, staring up at me, soothing and calming. 

           “Ok,” I whispered.

           Abruptly she took her hand away and looked around, as if looking for someone. 

           “Do you see?” she said, still looking out into the cast of characters walking the sidewalk. 

           “See what?” 

           She opened her arms wide, as if embracing the world. “The love.”

           “What?” I leaned in close to her face, “what are you talking about? Why are you asking me these things?”

           She smiled, still looking outward. “Look.” She pointed across the street, where a father was drying his daughter’s tears. Nearby, a toppled ice cream cone lay cone-upward on the sidewalk. Nearby a black man and a white man were in a passionate discussion about something, but it seemed friendly. The little girl moved her gaze to the opposite corner, where a teenager was kneeling beside the wheelchair of an elderly man with a Vietnam Veteran hat perched crookedly on his head. The man was waving the kid off, as if he didn’t want any help, but the young man patted the old man on the shoulder and steered the wheelchair across the street at the red light. The old man looked a bit befuddled, shaken, but pleasantly taken off guard. He gently smiled at the boy and took his hand in both of his before turning his chair down the sidewalk.

           “I know you’re afraid. I know you think the world is scary. But you gotta see the love, too. It’s there. And it makes all the colors more beautiful,” the little girl said, moving her hands as if painting a picture in the air. 

           “Who are you?” I whispered. I’d long ago lost my trust in dreams and serendipitous moments, my spirit sharpened with cynicism. So many doors shut in my face. Too many adventures stifled by reality. Dreams evaporated with disappointments.

           “You don’t really look that closely do you?” she laughed. “You’re so cute. But you need to look closer. The love was always there.” She reached up and hugged my neck, giggling. “I love you!” She put a small photograph in my hand, face down. “Don’t forget!” And she ran away, leaving her fountain drink with the chewed-up straw on the bench where she’d sat. 

           I watched her run away down the sidewalk, but the clouds suddenly moved away from the sun and produced a glare that swallowed her up. I shielded my eyes and moved around to try to see where she went, but I couldn’t find her. 

           I turned over the photograph in my palm. It seemed to be her school picture, those gorgeous, shining blue eyes staring back at me with a big confident grin on her face. She looked so beautiful. I blinked and suddenly gasped as the picture seemed to change. But didn’t. 

           The picture was my own third grade school picture. 

           I looked down the sidewalk, to the empty places in the crowd where she was not. I walked in that direction, but even as I did, I knew I wouldn’t find her. Not in any of the stores that lined the sidewalk. Not on a bench or at an ice cream stand. She wouldn’t be there. 

           I looked all around me, as if everyone could see how confused I was, but people just kept walking by. But they kept walking, all focused on their own thoughts, their destinations, maybe even their own fears. 

           Look. Look for the love. It’s always there. It was always there. 

           I started walking. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I knew I’d find my way. As long as I kept my eyes open.