Brigits_Flame Week 3 Prompt: Happiness Is...
“And big windows… stained glass windows … no wait… see, in the ceiling like this” I sketch waxy cerulean shapes onto the back of a paper grocery bag. My cousin studies it, and selects a wild-strawberry crayon to help me color. “Yes,” I encourage her, “Oh, that’s perfect. There. The glass will show pictures of fairy tales.”
“Fairy tales?”
“All your favorites. Hansel and Gretel, Ivan the Russian Ninny, Snow White and Rose Red-“
“The one with the dragon and the flower?”
“That’ll be the biggest one! They’ll be right above the library… and when the sun climbs just so…“ I add a few goldenrod flourishes “…the light will cascade through them like a kaleidoscope waterfall, splashing a mosaic onto the floor…yes, help me! It will be all cerulean and scarlet inlaid with emerald light-“
“And macaroni-and-cheese?” she thrusts the worn crayon under my nose.
“Wha-oh! Yes, I think a splash of macaroni-and-cheese would complete it.” We arm ourselves with a Crayola arsenal and scribble bold, waxy color blocks onto our crude brown sketchpad. We take a moment to admire our work, then I grab a blank canvas from the pile and position it on the floor in front of us.
“And you?” I prompt. “Where do you want to live when you grow up?”
“A castle!” She shrieks without hesitation, brimming with five-year-old enthusiasm. She rakes unapologetic macaroni-and-cheese lines across her bag, unconcerned with superfluities like outlines.
“With a dragon to guard it?”
“A friendly dragon. A purple one.” A far-off whistle and bang echoes in the distance, jolting us from the fairy tale. She leaps, panicked. “Oh no! They didn’t start yet, did they?” I catch her and swing her around, making her giggle with surprise and delight.
“Don’t worry! I wouldn’t miss the fireworks!” And with that I race her down the stairs and out the door to a hideous peeling picnic table that she claims for her castle, with me parading her around on my shoulders, her friendly purple dragon.
For her, happiness is as simple as a rainbow snowcone. She drips happiness all down my front as she lies nestled on my stomach, squealing alternatively in delight and discomfort at the thunderous fireworks display. After the deafening finale, she curls delicate arms around my neck in a tender hug, and whispers with the reverence of having just witnessed something sacred, “Will you watch them with me again next year?”
“Of course,” I promise.
But I don’t. I stay the summer in an apartment close to college, taking night classes and slaving in a greasy factory. I don’t even realize it is the fourth of July until my parents call me from the annual family gathering; they bestow niceties and invitations to visit, and then pass the phone off to my cousin.
“You couldn’t come?”
“I had to work,” I apologize. “I need money for college.”
“Oh.” She is disappointed. “Are you going to watch the fireworks there?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. I’m tired.”
“Oh.”
And as the beat of betrayal hangs in the silence between us, I can see her: her face sticky with sugary rainbow rivers as she reigns over her picnic table with a paper towel tube scepter, her feet rooted defiantly as she crows,
“I will never miss the fireworks!”
And hangs up.