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“Mommy!” she screeches, bouncing to her feet and wrapping her hands around my middle.
“My Mimi.” I laugh as I envelop her in my arms and inhale her little girl scent, feeling for the first time today that everything is alright with my world. I rest in the illusion for as long as humanly possible.
Mimi is like a shot of pure serotonin.
Even at my worst, she makes me feel like maybe I’m not such a shit stain on humanity. Hey, at least I did something right to have her turn out so beautifully and good.
Having her was the best decision I ever made. And even if the circumstance of her birth are less than ideal, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
After however long, Mimi starts to wriggle, her sign that she's ready for the hug to be over now.
“How was school?” I ask, reluctantly letting her go and taking her hand instead.
“It was okay.” Mimi skips as we walk, her pigtails swinging side to side and smacking against her backpack. “Larry ran away again.”
“Larry the rat?”
“Yeah." She sighs, as though done with the drama. I don't blame her. This is the third time the class pet decided to escape his little glass city and roam free. “Everyone in the class was freaking out because Stacey O says she saw him before nap time but nobody else did. So, they couldn’t figure out how long he’d been gone.”
“Is that so?
"Mhm. Mrs. Diana couldn’t trust Stacey O because she fibs a lot, but Stacey said she did see Larry. So, we went to the cafeteria to look for him, but no one could find him. And no one knows how he got out of the cage in the first place. It was ineffable.”
“Ineffable?” I ask her. This is one of her things. Sometimes, almost daily, she learns a new word and just uses it out of the blue, expecting everyone around her, regardless of age and smarts, to know what it means, but when people don’t she isn’t shy about explaining it.
Which is why she turns to give me a look and says, “It means that it’s difficult to understand.”
“Right. So, did they find the rat?”
“No,” she says. “They had to call animal control to look for him, but he didn’t show up. He probably got into the gardens and escaped back to his home. Rats survive well in the wilderness, you know?”
“Right. Well, all that sounds very exciting. What else happened?” I'm looking forward to hearing more of the rat's wacky adventures, not because I particularly care, but more that I just love hearing my daughter talk, love that little childish lisp that always slips through despite how mature she sounds in her words.
“Not much. After that, we all had story time, but I already knew most of the stories, so Mrs. Diana just gave me the dictionary to read.”
I laugh at that and Mimi glances at me wanting to know what I'm laughing at. I shake my head wryly.
“Nothing, it’s just… they didn’t have anything better than a dictionary?”
“I liked it,” Mimi says defensively. “It was very elucidating.” She glances at me again. “That means that…”
“I know what it means,” I tell her, ruffling her hair a little. She giggles and continues skipping until we get to my car.
Once we're home, I make sure Mimi showers and present her with what I got her earlier today.
“Here, honey,” I say, handing over the box containing a thousand-piece dinosaur puzzle. Mimi’s eyes glow when she sees it and she claps her hands together in delight.
“Thanks, mommy!”
“But…” I hold it away when she tries to take it. “You have to eat all your vegetables and promise that you’ll go to sleep on time.”
“I will, mommy. I promise.” She holds out her pinky and I smile as I wrap mine around it. My daughter takes pinky-promises very seriously, so I know she’ll keep her word. It’s as good as a blood oath to her.
I get started on dinner while she works, plating some mashed potatoes, broccoli, and lamb about thirty minutes later.
“Come on, Mimi.” I place the food on the dining table. “Food’s ready.”
My daughter doesn’t answer and I go back into the living room . She’s sitting with crisscrossed legs in the middle of a bunch of puzzle pieces, a half-finished puzzle border before her. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and she bites her lip as she works. She doesn’t even acknowledge my presence when I walk up to her.
