In a floating memory, the writer shuts off the light in her son’s bedroom, the boy finally breathing the sleep of little boys before they are asked to do the unthinkable, step into the story of men. She thinks of boys sleeping everywhere, how beyond-language beautiful they are. She knows she is like other mothers in part, but not entirely. In her there is a fracture. The fracture is another child. A girl. His sister who never was. Her chest constricts. Her heart beats past rupture. She can’t leave his room. Can’t walk into the hallway away from him. Who can count how long she stands there.
The first day of kindergarten she cried. She walked him and his miniature backpack into the field of small bodies. She kissed him good-bye. His eyes filled with tears. The kindergarten teacher led him into the classroom, telling her, “It will be okay.”
She walked to her car, got in, closed the door, and sat still for four hours. Waiting the wait of women who have carried death.