The longest part of the
two weeks is always the last day. The house is clean, the toys are
arranged, and our weekend is planned. I sit, watching the second hand
on the clock turn slow circles. I stand up, pace for a while, look out
the window, take another look around the house to make sure everything
is perfect. What will she be wearing? And will she notice the new print
on the wall? The minutes drag. It feels as if time is about to stop. I
sit back down on the couch, arms folded tightly across my chest, and I
wait.
Then I finally hear it. The slam
of a car door, a faint clatter of tap shoes on the concrete walk,
getting louder, now closer, now up the steps, until finally a small
fist pounds on my door. I rise and walk to the door, see her blue
eyes peering though the window. I open the door and my arms.
“Daddy!”
My weekend daughter jumps up and
throws her small arms around me so tightly that there is no reason for
me to hold on to her. But I do, my arms wrapped around her seven year
old body. I bury my face in her soft blonde hair. It smells wonderful,
like strawberries and sweat. She squeezes me tighter.
“Daddy! I missed you!”
She lifts her head off my
shoulder and looks at me and smiles with perfectly white teeth, missing
one in the front. She lost it the last time we were together when she
bit into an apple. There was blood everywhere, on the apple, her shirt,
her lips, the floor, and all she could think about was what the tooth
fairy would bring her. I look at the hole from the missing tooth and
see that it has healed, and wonder how it is that some wounds heal so
quickly.
She gives me one more big
squeeze, a kiss on the cheek, and then she puts her hands on my chest
and pushes herself away. She tries to wriggle free of my grasp.
“Put me down, Daddy.”
“Do I have to?”
“I want to find your kitty.”
I set her down. She runs off, and
only then do I look up to see her mother, looking happy, looking
content. She is carrying a small pink Barbie suitcase.
“I packed her a swimsuit in case it gets warm.”
“I already got her one.”
“She likes this one.”
She hands me the suitcase. I
accept the offering and place it on the kitchen table and thank her.
She looks around the apartment, at the floors, at the walls, at the new
print, then finally at me. “You got a new picture.”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“It’s weird,” she says.
“It’s a Dali.”
“What’s with the melting clocks?”
“I don’t know. I just like it.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
For a few long moments we are
silent. I feel like I should say something, but I can’t think of
anything. I look at the clock.
“Well,” I say. “You probably have things to do.”
She glances at her watch. “You’re
right. I better be going. Have her home by eight on Sunday.”
“Alright.” And with that, she
turns and walks away. I slam the door behind her and go search for my
daughter.
And our weekend passes quickly.
She tells me stories about her friends and her teachers. The latest
antics of her cats. We play games and we color. We watch cartoons. We
do normal family things like laundry and washing dishes, feeding the
cat and the goldfish. I listen to her laugh and listen to her cry, and
I put bandages on her scrapes and kiss her owies all better. At night I
tuck her into bed and read her bedtime stories. I tell her I love her
and she tells me the same. And as usual, the weekend goes too fast as
we try to distill two weeks of shared experience into two hectic days.
Our last supper is over. The
dishes are washed and her suitcase is packed. We still have some time
left, and so now we sit at the kitchen table with a library book and
colored paper. Tonight we are making origami. She stares at the
pictures, biting down on her tongue as she carefully folds and turns
and tucks the paper. After a time, her first creation is done. A green
paper frog. She looks up at me and smiles. She places the frog on the
table.
“Let’s pretend the frog is in the water,” she says, “and that the table is the water.”
“Alright,” I say. “What else lives in the water?”
She picks up the book, turns the pages, and finds what she wants.
“Help me make a duck.”
A few minutes later we have a brown paper duck. Then a white swan. A blue alligator.
“Let’s pretend that all the
animals came to visit the frog and they’re going fishing. Help me make
some fish.”
I grab a handful of paper and
begin to fold. Fold line A into line B. Fold line C over line D. Now
tuck E into the fold created by F and G. Take Monday and Tuesday and
Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and fold them into every other
Saturday and Sunday.
An hour has passed. She looks at the clock on the wall.
“It’s almost time to go,” she says.
“I know.”
She crawls into my lap and buries her face on my shoulder.
“I love visiting you, Daddy.”
I stroke her soft hair and kiss
the top of her head. “You aren’t visiting me. You’re living with me for
a while. You just live with your mother more, that’s all.”
She turns her head and looks at the origami animals we have made, then puts her head back on my shoulder.
“It’s not real, Daddy.”
I run my hand across her back, kiss her again.
“What’s not real, honey?”
“Everything. It’s just a bunch of colored paper.”
I feel a teardrop fall on my arm.
I pull her closer and she continues to cry as the clock eats up our
remaining time together. My shoulder grows damp as I hold her and
gently rock her back and forth. She’s right. It’s not real, but it’s
all we have. So for now, and for every other weekend, we pretend that
ducks and frogs and alligators go fishing, and that paper swans can fly.
Thanks for Visiting!