Evening storytime after a full day
She leans forward, grabs the edge of the bookshelf, and jumps high in the air. The hem of her gold dress flaps up. A scolding forms in my mind, not so much words as the sensation of reaching forward with one hand, and before it becomes a sound she turns and runs, full sprint, down the length of the children’s area then cuts through diagonally and back to my wife. Neither of them has seen me yet, I’m still walking across the library. My wife’s bouncing the baby on her knee. I catch her eye, wave, she gives me a thin smile and a head nod. The bottom drops out of my stomach - what did I do?! - and a second later it’s back. Everything’s fine, I’m sure.
“Daddy’s here,” she turns the baby to face me and the baby smiles, waves a hand at me with her elbow straight, swinging in a wide circle. I lean over, kiss them both. My older daughter’s hopping in place now. I kiss her too. My wife leans over to me, “she’s being kind of a shit,” she whispers. I wince and smile, hug her. “All day or just now?” I whisper back. “A little bit at the museum but mostly just now. She’s tired and got mad about something so she started doing stuff she knows she wasn’t supposed to do, like she ran up to another kid and took a toy right out of her hand.” “That sucks. You want me to take the baby and you can go browse?” “Sure.” “Oh hey before you do that, do you have any food in the diaper bag? I’m hungry.” She fishes out a protein bar. “Thanks. And would you check if there’s any books on hold for me, please?” “Okay.” I take the baby, kiss her again, fish my wallet out with one hand, then pull my card out, hand it over. “I’ll be back soon, story time’s going to start in a few minutes.” “Thanks for checking the holds.” “Yep.”
“Where’s mama I want mama-“ my older daughter is looking around, frowning. I squat down next to her. “She went to check out some stuff and she’s probably going to go potty. Do you want to go into the room where storytime is?” She runs to the door, I’m not sure she even heard my “don’t run in the library!” I stand, knees creaking, and follow. By the time I get into the room she has picked out three squares of carpet from the big red bucket. One has a rainbow and the letter ‘r’ on it. Another an igloo and an ‘i’. The third has a dog and the letter ‘d’. “Who are those for?” I’m sure she has one of us in mind for each square. “The rainbow one is for me.” That’s probably a Wizard of Oz reference for her. She has been listening to the audiobook several times a week for a while now. “The igloo one, that’s for mama, the igloo is for Frozen.” My wife just took her to see that movie. I haven’t seen it, other than some clips on youtube. At my daughter’s ballet recital they will be dancing to a song from that movie, which is how we heard of it. She was pissed off at first because she wanted to do the same song as her last recital, “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Mary Poppins or to do “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” from the Wizard of Oz. My wife found a clip online and my daughter said “that looks kind of like Tinkerbell,” another favorite of hers, and she was immediately excited to see the movie. “This one has a dog on it, and the letter ‘d’, that’s for you to sit on, Daddy.” “Thank you for finding us all a carpet square.” “You’re welcome.”
The librarian walks in carrying the boombox (are they still called boomboxes? Christ that makes me feel old). She sets it on the table at the front of the room. My daughter’s looking around now, frowning again. “Don’t worry, mama will be here soon.” She wants my wife in here by the time storytime starts. The librarian adds, “I still have to go get the basket with the books for tonight, and I’ll wait for everyone before we start.”
A rumble from my stomach reminds me I didn’t pack enough lunch for work today. My wife walks in with the canvas bag bulging. “Lots of holds?” “Yeah, all your stuff.” “Thanks for doing that. Did you check them out?” “No, I should have.” “I need to go to the bathroom anyway, and I want to get a drink of water to wash down this protein bar, I’ll check them out while I’m at it.” “Okay.” She hands me my library card and the stack of books. The baby’s on the floor trying to stand by pulling on my older daughter’s shoulder, which she does not like, judging by the way she’s leaning to get away. My wife picks up the baby. I walk out the door, unwrapping the protein bar and stuffing big chunks of it in my mouth as I walk. It’s powdery and dry, but it’ll take the edge off my hunger. I wash it down with big mouthfuls from the drinking fountain. I go into the bathroom, pee, wash my hands, walk to the check out computer, where there’s now a guy letting his small son check out all their items. I do this with my daughter too, she likes to make the machine beep, but I’m annoyed because story time is about to start. The man and his son finish up, I check my stuff out and turn. My wife is walking toward me fast, holding the baby. Behind her I hear the beginning of the song we always do at the start of storytime. “These are my glasses, this is my book…” “She’s really upset you’re not in there. She may lose it and may not be able to calm down, we might have to leave.” “Shit. I had to pee. I’m coming in now.” We walk back, through the open door I see tear tracks shining on my daughter’s face.
I set the bag of books down and sit behind her, pick her up into my lap. She sniffles twice. I put my hand on her forehead, push her gently toward my chest. She leans back into me, I brush her hair out of her eyes and kiss the top of her head. She breathes deep in then out as the librarian gets out the first book, about a cat who is scared all the time. “This reminds me of our cats,” I say. She turns her head to glance at me, smiles, looks back to the book. The cat has a friend, a boy, who he likes to play with and cuddle with. “That reminds me of how our cats like to sleep by you, you’re their good friend.” She looks at me again, smiles again, learns her temple into my cheek, looks back to the book, smiles bigger and says “I like this book.”