"Do you remember me?" the six year old asked through the open window, as if he and I had run into each other walking down the street. The driver of the car didn't seem to notice.
"Yes!" I responded "I was afraid you didn't remember me!"
"Lola is really big now..." he responded as the vehicle began to drive.
I saw his little face hanging out of the window, speaking, arm outstretched, saying something unintelligible as the car whisked away.
I heard whimpering. I woke up and realized I was on the floor, saying Lola's name as my hands searched for her in the dark. I couldn't find her. Slowly things came to focus and I saw her sleeping on our bed as she always does, sprawled, her neck stretched out, facing the foot of the bed. She wasn't whimpering. She was sleeping soundly.
I walked past my niece in the hallway at school. My eyes were still puffy, swollen.
"Are you okay?" I whispered, picturing the yard, the carnage in the yard.
She nodded. And kept walking.
I went to my class. The bell rang. I started yelling greetings to them over the noise, over their loud conversations that weren't interrupted by the beginning of class. It didn't matter. They just kept talking.
I slept hard, pulling Lola up from the foot of the bed and clutching her now fifty pound body in my arms, her head resting on my face. She would try to resume her normal position but I would only wake up again and drag her closer, her face resting on my neck, my head, my pillow. Or my head resting on her chest while her chin laid higher, on top of my head.
I woke up for work in the morning with Lola laying next to me, her neck and head resting on my stomach. I had to get up, take a shower, get dressed. But Lola's eyes stayed closed and her chin seemed to press on my stomach, her belly glued to my hip and side. I laid there as long as I could and arrived for another day at school with wet hair, glasses on and my only make up being bright red lipstick, as if that could make up for the rest of my disheveled look.
And I taught.
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