fortress

I woke at 4 am instantly aware of what I had done.  At some point in the night I had locked my elbow between my knees- again. The pain is a gentle reminder of why I shouldn't sleep alone too often.

Well, I wasn't really alone. At 9:30 last night my patient 11 yr old sidekick marched by carrying a zoological sampling of stuffed animals. "You almost had me." She said, "I was almost asleep in my own bed then I remembered dad is gone."

It is our habit to sleep together if ever BC is away. He has long since outgrown sharing a bed with a kid who sleeps on a diagonal and dreams gymnastics. 

But I know how little time is left here in the land of childhood so I allow it. In a king-sized bed, after the twitching dies down, it is easy to lose her in a landscape made of blankets and pillows. And then there is that other small detail, I am afraid of the dark.   

I called her patient because she had patiently waited for me to knock loose from work last night. I was slow to want to leave. I didn't want to walk the dark parking lot and drive the empty drive, walk through the front door and close it behind us. 

I had collected her from a pile of mats only after having to ask one of the coaches where she even was. He had answered straight away, "She's in the donut" sounding tired for her, his own patients with me possibly thin telling me yet again to "Go home."

Eight O'clock at night and I don't even know where my own kids is. 

After her practice had ended, tired (and missing the idea of her dad), she had wandered out to this same coach in the back of gym and sat down beside him on the floor. Not typical of Beach to seek company from grown-ups but it was bound to happen eventually.   

He probably thinks I'm a bad mom; he's probably right.... that was what I was thinking when Beach said, "I have the best life." She does that sort of thing to me all the time. It used to amaze me; I don't know how I feel about it anymore.     
 
Crossing a sea of shiny blacktop into the night together. Climbing into a cold car. Eating potato soup from the slow-cooker in fat mugs, way beyond any reasonable dinner hour. I haven't checked lately but I don't recall these sort-of things showing up in the book of Best Lives. They all seem more like behaviors from the Crazy Cat Lady's Handbook to me.

I let her fall asleep in her contacts.
I let her take-up most of the bed. 
I didn't even bother to tell her we didn't win the lottery again. I checked.

And in the night, lost in a big bed, I let all the things I worry about for her roll me up into the tightest ball I could make- a fetal fortress. 

Dreams of sulfur springs & river stones, of cold air settling in on a tent lit by stars, memories of watching frost in a field change to dew at dawn, all lost to worry and doubt of a mother.   
  
I am the one who is always in her corner. I am the driver to gym and the keeper of the schedules. I am the parent in the waiting room. Her teacher, sometimes her opponent, often her playmate. I sit single at her meets and pretend it doesn't matter that we are alone surrounded by the fan clubs of others. I drag her to the gym early and keep her there late in the name of devotion but really we have no other choice.  By default she is isolated by my shortcomings.

Somewhere in my head I know she is okay. In my heart I can't help but to feel like I am letting her down. For everything I can do for her I fear it is the one thing I can't that will undo us.  She deserves so much more than just me...