Sticking Together

Excerpted from When Grief Calls Forth the Healing

In our double carriage with Pat,
Central Park, 1940.

“We get out now. See bears!” Michael’s eyes gleam in his small, round face.

“Not today,” Pat replies, no allowing in her voice. “I’ve told you, not until we reach the playground. We’re just walking through the zoo.”

“Now!” I echo Michael and throw my mittens out of the carriage.

Michael looks at me, then at his mittens. He pulls them off and throws them, too. We giggle and begin to pull at our woolen hats.

“Stop it this minute,” exclaims the nurse. She stuffs the fallen mittens back into the carriage. “One more naughty thing and we’ll go straight home. You can sit in the dark now and think about what you’ve done.”

She unhooks the two accordion hoods from each end of the large, gray pram and closes them together over our heads.

“Geedie?” I whisper our love name in the sudden black dark. “Geedie!”

I reach out my hands. No safe shape, no sound, just the feel of a wet mitten. “Where?” I whisper again, frightened. My hand finds a shoe, then a leg. I inch forward.

“Here!” Michael finds the flap of my coat, then my arm. Our hands meet, little fingers curling together—shut tight.

“Bad Pat,” Michael whispers, holding on.

“Bad dark,” I answer, holding, too.