the fair and the show

Every May there is a fair down the street at Buchanan Park, and every year that we've been here since we arrived in the wake of Mike's diagnosis I have taken the kids on Wednesday night, the first night, when good vibes abound and the whole neighborhood hits the cotton candy and the scrambler and walks home with little flashing goldfish who may live one night or a thousand in clear plastic containers. One year Mike was well enough to come along and squeezed into a couple of kiddie rides with Bea. This year, I got home from work just as Gabriel was returning home from his guitar lesson. He wolfed down a snack and ran out the door to meet his friends. Frances was at a school event and made it there much later. I picked up Beatrice from ballet at six, brought her home to change, and then walked down towards the lights and music.

Recently Beatrice asked me, have you noticed how I'm afraid of everything lately? Did you notice that I always have to call for you and ask you where you are when we're at home, even if I know you just went into the bathroom? Yes, I have noticed that, I said. I think it's why I can't fall asleep at night, she added. I'm too scared.

She clings and pulls on my arm when we go places with so much ferocity that it hurts. She digs her nails into my hands. I've taken to walking next to her with my arms resting on my head so she can't yank. At the fair it was no different. She wanted to go on the ferris wheel like we did last year, and as the line inched us towards the the benches that slowly descended, swinging gently, she clung harder and harder. When we got on, she squeezed my hands and immediately begged me to take her off. At the top she screamed to be let off. I convinced her to stay and give it a try; she managed to stop screaming, but it wasn't easy.

I had bought her a wristband so she could ride as many rides as she wanted. We walked all around the fair, stopping to say hi to friends, taking in everything, deciding what would be fun to try. I would spot Gabriel sprinting by with his friends every now and then. The more we looked around, the more tightly Bea clung. She pulled me in this direction and that; she rejected every suggestion with increasing anxiety. I was getting so irritated. I had to continually pull my arm away from her. Come on. This is fun. This is the fair! So many of our friends are here, enjoying themselves! We can too.

But she couldn't. Nothing was right. Everything was scary. I tried to get her to try the teacups with her brother, who I had somehow pinned down for the moment.

No no no. Only you.

But I'll throw up if I ride the tea cups, I explained. Gabriel won't.

But I only want you.

I felt exasperated. I stood in the middle of the fair and looked at Bea with her missing teeth, her dirty feet in plastic flip flops, her big pleading eyes, and some stubborn angry part of myself abruptly gave way. I asked her what snack we should get.

She lit up. Kettle corn!!

I bought a big bag. We walked out of the fair, into the quieter park that surrounded it, and decided to sit under a tree just on the periphery of the action. We settled on the damp grass as darkness fell, Beatrice finally relaxed and leaning against me, sharing an open bag of sweet and salty popcorn and watching unseen as our friends and neighbors walked in and out of the fairground. She said, Mama, this is the best part of the fair. I'm having such a good time with you.

I smiled. It definitely was. It was as if I finally accepted that we don't quite belong in the midst of all those lights and games and happy families. Rather than force our participation in something that felt wrong, we took our place in the dusky outer edge. I watched with a kind of contented sadness as couples we know whose children are off at college walked by hand in hand, aglow with nostalgia for fairs gone by, and younger families we know wrangled their exhausted toddlers into strollers, and all of it was happening over there, lit up by the rides and games, away from us, sitting among the safe, sturdy roots of a very old tree in the dark.

It makes me think of Lear.

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison.

10We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down

And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

15Talk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too—

Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out—

And take upon ’s the mystery of things

As if we were God’s spies. And we’ll wear out

In a walled prison packs and sects of great ones

20That ebb and flow by the moon.

When you are grieving you are God's spy, sitting apart in your prison, watching it all go by, knowing you are no longer a part of court happenings as you once were but somehow closer to the mystery of things. That kettle corn was my offering, my way of kneeling down and asking Beatrice's forgiveness, so we could nestle together on our perch and watch the stories unfolding below.

There's so much I want to do. I get frustrated with her anxiety and fear, her clinging, along with the weight of all my children's grief, the million things I haven't done - the emails I've neglected and plants I haven't watered and milk I haven't bought - the enormity of tending this family without Mike while my heart is so broken. I long to go to this party, that play, a retreat on Sunday, a yoga class, a drink with a friend, the couch with a book, a manicure, a concert. So little of it happens. My kids need me. Maybe I need me too. My golden birdcage prison calls me: come inside, you don't really belong in that world anyway, you feel alien and strange at the art show, the fair. Come snuggle with Beatrice and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, give her your arm, accept the confines of this new life.

Tonight was the school art show. It's a wonderful event, full of art and music and friends. Frances performed. I volunteered at the snack table (after hearing repeatedly how I am the *only* parent that doesn't volunteer at school) and when there was a lull in the action, I wandered the show and took pictures of the kids' art boards. It was a habit. I had always texted them to Mike, who never seemed to be well enough for this event and would be waiting for us at home.

After I took the photos I realized with dismay that I had no one to send them to. I wandered back to my post. I felt lost and tried to busy myself. I thought about sending them to a friend but that seemed lame. A man introduced himself to me, explaining we had gone to high school together. It took me a minute, but I recognized him. His daughter is in Beatrice's class. I smiled and chatted and felt that my lostness - my questionable departure from my prison cage - was as obvious as if I had busted handcuffs dangling from my wrists. Yeah, we went to high school together, we're both pretty nice people, we have six year old daughters, we're both forty-one years old, but I belong back in my cage with my grieving freaked out little girl while you are at your ease in this beautiful room with your wife and your health and your plans to go out for ice cream after the art show.

Then Beatrice, the grieving girl in question, tore past, deep in a game with her friends from school, shrieking and sweaty. Unlike her mother, she didn't look like an escaped convict at all.

Afterwards Frances went to a friend's house and Gabriel was out playing Magic so it was just the two of us again, reading in bed, when we heard booms and crackles outside. We opened the door to the upper balcony off her bedroom and sat outside, Beatrice nestled on my lap, watching the fireworks being set off at the fair down the street. We had a perfect view up there. It was beautiful.