Entreaty

“Look who’s here!” She runstumbles to me, leaving a trail of tiny mud prints from where she had been helping Nonna plant flowers in the dirt patch by the walkway.  I fling my overnight bag up onto the back patio and squat down open-armed just in time to be tackled in her chubby embrace. I breathe her in; a heady combination of wet Illinois clay, baby powder, peanut butter, plastic, and something that terrifies me because I can’t identify it. I should know this smell. I take measurement, feast on details. There is more weight. Arms reach all the way around my neck now with a fierceness that echoes the fury at my last departure.   Big black curls are still defying gravity. The pink onesie I sent home is now almost too small. “Mommy,” she says, just the faintest noise from her. I almost drop her, but she notices and holds tightly to my arms. “She learned a new word,” my mom says, smiling, unaware of my panic as she goes back to planting. I pull back, look into an inquisitive upturned face and wonder how long I have before her words turn into memories she won’t forgive me for. “You did!? Say it again!” I avoid dark brown eyes which convey love and timidity by turns, and focus on a tiny o-shaped mouth. “Mommy?” It comes out like a question I don’t want her to have to ask, but I answer her, “Yes, sweetie.”

Originally Published in River Bluff Review May 2009