I have kids.
Sometimes that concept is just sinking in… I have kids. They came from me. They’re made up of me… but they’re their own little people, separate from me in every possible way.
Charlie has been busy finding her own personage. She’s brilliant, clever and insanely introspective.
She’s also a huge handful.
The other day, after an impossibly long series of challenges I told her I promised I’d send her to bed without a bath if she [I honestly can’t remember exactly what she was doing anymore, but it was SOMETHING].
Daddy asked “Do you know what a promise is?”
and Charlie said “Yup. A promise comes.”
I don’t know if I could have defined promise more succinctly. Utter brilliance.
So that’s where this story comes from. That and a few dozen other things that are ever-present in my life these days.
I hope you enjoy!!
Promise
Jill N Davies
“The sun will be back. I promise.”
That’s what Sondra said to Ola, her three-year-old daughter. It seemed like the most practical and logical thing to say to her. Wisdom passed on from generation to generation, fortified by decades of personal experience. That’s what the sun did—it set in the evenings and rose again the next morning. Sondra had never considered the possibility that this simple truth might at any point in time not be.
But that was three days ago.
They’d been soaking up the last of the mid-spring warmth soaked into the ground from the brilliantly radiating body in the sky. Mosquitos were starting to buzz at Ola’s bare arms and Sondra’s ankles were already beginning to itch, but the evening was too damnably pleasant to call it quits just yet. Ola’s hair spread out like a halo of glowing auburn around her radiant face as she basked in the sort of pure joy only accessible to children. Sondra was doing the next best thing and absorbing some of it for herself—somehow able to remain completely in the moment while simultaneously channeling her own youth.
“When the sun goes down it will be night time,” Ola said authoritatively.
“That’s right. And we’ll have go to bed with it,” Sondra agreed.
“Cozy in our beds, with pajamas and stories and a glass of warm milk,” Ola said. In the last several months she’d really gotten into rehearsing—things that had already happened, expectations for the future… and especially her best fantasies, which largely included such fantastical creatures as unicorns, dinosaurs and (of course) Disneyland.
Sondra closed her eyes, shutting out the blur of gold-lined clouds against the dimming horizon. She wrapped an arm around Ola’s bare shoulder to pull her in, wrapping her in a warm embrace. She smelled like grass and sunshine—of smashed dandelions and sticky watermelon residue not washed from sticky hands—like the softness and innocence of a fresh baby.
Ola hugged her back with the ferocity of unbridled emotion. Her arms were like tiny steel bars wrapping around Sondra’s soft middle.
“That sounds pretty wonderful to me,” Sondra said, still basking.
Ola’s grip shifted. She became still—unnaturally still for such a young and energetic being. Alerted, Sondra opened her eyes and focused.
Everything was as it should be. Golden edges were fading to silvers that would turn grey. The last of the immediately available heat was dissipating from the ground and air, beckoning the chill of night. There were more mosquitos now and Sondra knew it was time to get Ola’s prediction underway, but she paused.
“What’s the matter?” She asked.
“The night can make me sad,” Ola said, still clinging to Sondra’s middle.
Though Ola had never shown any signs of distress or fear of the dark before, Sondra wasn’t terribly concerned. It wasn’t uncommon for kids her age to go through phases.
“It’s okay. I’ll turn on the nightlight. And I’ll be right there in the other room, sleeping in my bed. You can come get me if you need to,” She said.
Ola paused, as if considering the merit of this proposition, then nodded slowly—likely imitating a gesture she’d seen Sondra make.
“And the sun will come back in the morning?” Ola asked.
And Sondra had promised.
Now, facing the fourth consecutive day without the sun’s warming light, Sondra was growing increasingly worried.
It wasn’t until the most natural thing in the universe ceased to be that she realized the inadequacies of all the manmade conveniences. Sure, she appreciated the yellow-white glow of artificial light that ushered her down the long hallway to the bedrooms. She was grateful for the warm water spurting from the showerhead and faucets—she and everyone else. With each passing sunless day it grew colder. In fact, Sondra was beginning to suspect that she missed the warmth radiating from the sky even more than she missed the light. If not, it was at least close.
No one could explain why the sun didn’t rise. This concerned Sondra more than anything else. It was as though the sun had just packed its bags in the darkness of night and taken off. The fact that scientists could confirm the sun’s location in space, relative to the Earth, did nothing to assuage her mounting anxiety.
But more than anything Sondra was mad. The sun had made a liar out of her. There was a lot that Sondra got wrong about being a mother, but she prided herself on being honest to Ola. The sun was messing that up.
She was stewing on that fact when Ola, who had given up sleeping in her own bed on the first night, crept into the room and buried herself under the pile of blankets at Sondra’s side. She nestled herself into the crook of Sondra’s arm and let out a heavy sigh.
“Are you cold?” Sondra asked, knowing that she had to be.
“Yup,” Ola agreed.
“I’m sorry. I’ll turn the heater up again tonight,” Sondra said.
Ola was quiet.
“Are you worried?” Sondra asked, trying her best to interpret Ola’s silence. Surly she had to be worried. Sondra was an adult, complete with a wealth of coping mechanisms and her confidence in the situation had only wanned through the experience.
“No,” Ola said, matter of factly.
“Well, that’s good,” Sondra said, masking her surprise with a firm kiss on the top of Ola’s head. “How come?”
Ola shifted in the bed so that she was facing her mom. She rested her pixie chin on a small hand, gazing up in the lamplight at Sondra’s face.
“Because the sun will come back,” Ola said.
“How do you know?” Sondra asked. She was both bemused and furiously curious.
“Because you promised, and a promise comes,” Ola said.
Sondra didn’t respond. She didn’t know how to. All she wanted was to make it true. She fell asleep fixated, willing the sun to rise.
The next day, it did.
The End
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