Early morning. Tidge still vastly under. His face smooth as if it’s lit from within, his eyelids shiny like they’ve been brushed with Vaseline. Mouse awake. Rises stiff. The night’s anxiety still curled in his bones and even more nagged by worry now. Because dawn’s here, the closeness of a key that works. Light slits open the black. Brightness comes quickly and he runs to the window and presses his palms to the sky and wants to dive up, up into that wide happy blue, wants to lick the lovely air. Footsteps. Outside. In suits and heels as they brisk along in that hurried way that city feet do. Your boy knocks on the glass but they cannot see or hear; unknowing they pass. Cars, finally. Thank goodness. He picks up his notebook.
The traffic lights have a reason now. I was getting worried for them, they looked so forlorn. Like they’d been stood up.
The busyness of the waking city seeps into the room and your youngest stands sentinel, waiting for goodness knows what: Motl and you perhaps to rush into this place and scoop them up whooping and laughing with relief but then his eyes squeeze shut — no, no — he shakes his head, no more crying’s allowed out, Dad wouldn’t want it.
But they didn’t come. They didn’t get us out. We’re ALONE. What happens to grown-ups when their past catches up? And their kids. NO FAIR what happens to them. NO FAIR.
Your hand sits in the classroom of God.