No tomorrow’s at peace

“Anyway, we’re near to the end now and so almost to the point where we can loop around back to the beginning. What do you want to know?”

She was used to the weird things I said by now. I would have asked what the end meant but all she said was: “I want to know where I came from.”

“Oh. That old story. Didn’t your mamma tell you this one already?”

“Yes, but I want to hear it from you.” Her serious face. So cute.

“I can only really tell you what Stella, your mamma that is, told me. What do you want from me?”

“You tell things differently. You’re better at stories than she is.” Her eyes went wide like only seven-year-old eyes can. ” But please don’t tell her I said that!”

“Of course, I won’t.”

The light was dim in her small bedroom but there was enough for me to see how eyes become luminous. Pre-tears I thought. Not from fear I thought. Some kind of love I thought. Grateful? I’d been a young girl myself once, but it was too long ago.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Here’s what I know: there was a man who came and went. While he was here he put something in your mamma’s tummy.”

“Me?”

“Half of you.”

She frowned a little, but not enough for me to stop. It was difficult enough to explain these things anyway without a lengthy question-and-answer session so I went on quickly. “The other half of you, the better half, was already there inside her tummy.”

“Umm-hmm.”

“You started growing in there and after nine months you came out. And that’s where you came from.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Mamma tells it better.”

“What else does she say?”

“Pretty much the same as you but she says the word love a lot. She says that there was a lot of love. What’s love?”

“She must have told you.” Stalling for time.

“Yes, she told me lots. But now you tell me.”

“Well …”

“It’s okay, I’m only seven. I won’t really know if you get it wrong.”

I laughed and she smiled too.

“Thank you for that.” With a sideways nod and a wry smile. Only slightly sarcastic. I glanced at my watch; almost time for me to go.

“Love is when you want to be around someone forever and ever.”

She creased up the perfect skin on her forehead. “Actually, that’s no bad.”

I laughed. There was still time. I risked another roll of the pin. “What else do you want to know?”

She thought for a fraction of a moment then said “where did you come from?”

Ah yes. That. She knows what I mean by the end and the beginning. “You’re clever,” I told her.

“I know,” she said, “and I know what you’re going to say next too.”

“Go on. Tell me.”

“You’re going to say that that’s a whole ‘nother story and tell me to go to sleep now.”

I smiled and I did.

And then, just like at the end of all the other bedtimes, I kissed her on the forehead and whispered to her that she was a princess, that she would have sweet dreams and that I would see her in the morning.

And I would.

---

From Marla then here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here but don’t mind me chuntering away in the corner.

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