Once, when I was six, my mom lost me. In the middle of an amusement park, amid a rush of jumbling bodies, floating balloons and rock and roll music. She was beside me, or I was beside her, and then she was gone. Or I was gone. And I was left staring desperately up at faces looking to find the one that was familiar. I bumped along in my red and white sundress past scruffy, heckling, carnies pacing their booths, their voices rising above the drum beats blaring from the large speakers. I thought I would never see her again, I was lost forever.
And then a face appeared over me, blocking the sun. Bright red lips smiled at me, cracking a snow white face into a hundred fissures. One side of the painted lips drooped towards his chin dragging the cracks with them. Arching eyebrows propped a tall black hat with a purple feather springing from the top. A tear drop winked under his sky blue eyes as he leaned down. I don’t recall what he said to me, but I followed him. Watched and wondered at his limping gate, his big red shoes flopping through the dust as his body twisted and bounced awkwardly.
I sat in a yellow room, swinging my feet while he pulled a ribbon from his hat and made it disappear again. He was funny, and sad, and he smelled like old people. Then my mom was there, yanking me into her arms, squeezing till the breath pushed from my lungs. She cried big tears and touched my face and talked so fast I couldn’t catch her words. But, they were good words, and they made me believe she had been just as scared as me.
The second time she lost me I learned it was a good idea to hold her hand while in public.
Abby Road ~ 