AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”
“It was quiet. Just your mom and me, Tuesday afternoons. When you were in school, she’d take you out.”
His words trigger a memory in my mind that was long buried.
Mom taking me out of school once a month in second grade.
We’d drop off Lola and then she’d just not take me to elementary school, instead taking me to breakfast and to the mall for some shopping. A girls’ day, she told me. Just us two.
And then . . .
“The park,” I say, the word quiet and nearly whispered as the memory emerges, cobwebs pulling back as it comes into the light. Alfredo’s eyes go wide.
So insignificant to a six-, seven-, eight-year-old girl playing in a park and having a girls’ day, especially considering months later my mother would get sick, those moments overpowering the bulk of my childhood memories.
“The park on Fifth and Broad,” he whispers, confirming my memories.
And then my mind moves, flickering through pages of long-buried moments in time and settling on one when I was seven.
* * *
I’m standing in a castle, waving at my mom. She’s smiling. She looks tired but happy.
She’s tired a lot lately.
Mr. R is sitting next to her and he smiles too.
I’m a queen, standing on top of the world.
Mr. R stands up, walking to me and standing below me.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair!” he says, and I laugh. I like Rapunzel. She’s my favorite princess ever.
But I don’t want to be her.
“I’m not Rapunzel, Mr. R!” I say with a giggle. His hands go to his hips and he makes a silly, confused face.
“You’re not? That pretty blonde hair would have fooled me.”
“I’m not a princess!” I say it with little-girl frustration, as if to say, How could you even say that?
“Oh no?”
“No. Princesses are no fun.” He leans against the plastic play structure and smiles.
He’s got a nice smile. And he talks to me. Mr. R always talks to me like he doesn’t mind if I’m little and only want to talk about kid stuff. Other old people don’t like to talk about princesses and fairy tales. All of Daddy’s friends always tell me to go play by myself while they have grown-up talk.
Mr. R talks to me, and I like that.
He’s nice.
“No fun? They get to wear pretty dresses and sparkly crowns though.”
“But queens get to wear sparkly crowns and they get to make the rules. And they get to fight.” His smile grows.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to be a princess. I don’t want to be pretty. I want to fight!”
