Can’t Take It

Last night I went to bed around 7:00 after Eleni, Jason and the person with the tiny face left. By 8:00 I was a sobbing fool, so I called my girleen who said I could come visit. I  jumped in my car at that stupid hour and arrived, very tired, at 9:00. Jason was in the process of building a fire because he knows how much I like fires, but I ignored him and headed straight for my baby: sleeping with arms and black curls akimbo, a microscopic goddess. Eleni walked me through my house — which is really my house, unlike this unfriendly rectangle in Davis  — and led me to the bed she’d made for me and Ember. It was my familiar old room, except my bed is lacking my mattress. So I slept on the floor on the small mattress on the floor that they had brought in, looking up at the slats of my bed, and clutching my tiny treasure. She woke up one time so I called E on the cellphone by my elbow. E provided breast comfort for the little one, and then returned her to me.

By midnight, little Virginia was hungry again. It was then I remembered I’d forgotten to blow out the candle in the kitchen in Davis. Jason offered numerous compelling reasons I shouldn’t worry about it, all of which turned out to be accurate, but I couldn’t shake the guilt of having burned down a house that wasn’t even my own. Close to 1:00 a.m. I returned my baby to its proper custodians, got into my car, stopped for predawn gas, and drove back to Davis, cursing my forgetfulness all the while. I got here shortly before 2:00.

I hadn’t left my candle burning after all. I have been cursing myself ever since for depriving myself of Quality Time with little Virginia, only because my brain is fried.