“I’ll Interpret For You,” My Youngest Said

I never expect the needles.

“I’ll interpret for you,” my youngest said, the second the tech left the room and she saw the wild look in my eyes begin. The kind that best befits a horse’s bridle. “You can look at me.”

“Look at the sidewalk ahead,” I say into her ear as we walk out of the spine building, my hip throbbing, anxiety high. “What are you going to do next?”

In the video game of life, she has always failed at Sidewalk Level.

“I hate walking with you!” we wail as she bumper-cars her way around the world.

“A bull in a china shop,” my mom used to say as she gave me the nod outside a fancy store before we went in. Knowing exactly what this meant, I’d cross my hands behind my back, and keep them that way for the remainder of the retail ramble.

“What are you going to do?” I say, snapping Follin back into reality for a second.

Up ahead: a woman who is older than she. (“I don’t care how old,” I say, “If older than YOU, give the right of way.”)

Recently, I’ve limped along sidewalks. My back - at that time- covered in tender elongated wounds, and just the thought of someone grazing me, or forcing a step out of the way (“I can’t twist or turn. My life is the opposite of a pivot!”) throbbed to imagine. As teenagers approached and made no attempt to move, I (holding onto someone for support and looking terrified at any game of chicken) felt downtrodden to realize I was always the meat. Always the trodden.

“I’m going to move,” Follin says, pivoting out of the way for the person ahead, before going back into her imagination for a while. (She rarely beats this level of Sidewalk but today, the console is still warm.)

Sometimes I think about my mother and the possible shattered purchases accidentally destroyed while growing up. I learned to cross my hands behind my back sometimes, sure… but only so we could go home and paint, play, por de bras. A mess was never a mess in our house… It was always a memory.

I look at my Dear Daughter and wonder what the world must see. Do they see that she struggles to pivot sometimes? Or do they see what they really should: The person who looks at the pain in someone else’s face every single time, and is always the first to say:

“You can look at me.”

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