Last week, I spent a string of lovely, leisurely afternoons reading at our neighbourhood library. My daughter was attending “What If?”, a week-long a theatre workshop there and I had promised her that I would be outside, if she needed me. On the very first afternoon when the doors opened, she emerged completely engrossed in a conversation with a new friend. Of course, she had seen him around our neighbourhood before, being almost the same age. But on that afternoon they seemed to have found joy in each other’s company.
Over the next few days, their friendship grew. One day, she shared her picnic of gulkand and cream sandwiches with him. The next day, he shared mangoes and roasted cashews with her. And then they made plans to play together in the evening. One evening, he came over on his big cycle. Her own was dusty (and she was a bit rusty) so she joined on her small one. That night, she asked her father to clean her big cycle and help her practice for the next day. But, the next evening, her friend arrived on his own small cycle to set her at ease.
With that sweet gesture, he endeared himself to us. As the week drew to a close, their workshop culminated in a joyful open rehearsal where they could share their creative explorations along with questions and room for re-takes. On Sunday, we took them to an intimate theatre performance in the neighbourhood too. As we walked home that night, it felt like a beautiful week was coming to an end. Bittersweet. My daughter and her friend walked together in front, his mother and I followed, with their fathers behind us.
After turning into our lane, we lost sight of the children but they were only a few steps from her friend’s home. It was late in the evening now, almost 8 o’clock, and both sets of her grandparents were waiting to have dinner with us. But we didn’t have the heart to hustle her and lingered a little longer chatting with his parents. When we reached their front door, their house was surprisingly dark. His mother stepped inside and came out a moment later saying only he was inside. I could feel my husband’s heart sink with my own.
We are lucky to live in a wonderfully safe and child-friendly neighbourhood. During the day and with a friend, our six-and-a-half-year-old daughter is perfectly comfortable wandering around by herself. But after dark, as golden lamps light up meandering paths that criss-cross familiar gardens, she is happy to hold our hands on her way home. On two previous occasions, when she has found herself alone outside in the late evening, in the frantic few minutes that it took us to find her, she had burst into tears.
As we split up and ran along different routes looking for her, her friend’s father kindly following us, checking with family and friends if they had seen her, we were thinking of those tears. When we met outside our own dark home, a moment or two later, with no sign of her anywhere, we felt a surge of new alarm. “Where could she be?”, we wondered. My husband turned on the lights and asked me to wait for her at home while he went out to search again. Logically, that made sense but I couldn’t bring myself to sit still.
I found my feet taking me back to her friend’s home. From all that she had told me about his kindness, from what I had observed of his empathy, from how she had revelled in his gentle and cheerful companionship, I knew in my heart that he was not the sort of friend who would leave her in the lurch. It felt unlikely that after such a wonderful week together they would part ways so quickly and she would run home alone in the dark. Perhaps, after all that imaginative play and storytelling, this was simply another story?
I reached their home to find his mother at the door smiling, “She’s here.” Inside the little friends were giggling, asking if they could have dinner together, please, please, please, bouncing around the living room. As their fathers returned home, relieved, we began to say our goodbyes. I scooped my daughter up into my arms and told her we couldn’t have dinner together as her grandparents were waiting but she could have her friend over for breakfast the next morning. The two little people agreed, albeit reluctantly.
As we walked home, we shared with our daughter how we had been so worried in the few minutes that we couldn’t find her. We spoke to her gently and as measuredly as we could. I could empathise with her wish for an enchanting week to go on a little longer. She said, while it had felt like fun in that moment, she wouldn’t do it again. As I gave her a bath, we continued to chat about how she had felt, and we had felt, and what had happened. And then we went over to have dinner with both sets of her grandparents.
When we sat down to dinner I asked her if we could share the story with her grandparents. I said I cannot sleep with a story in my stomach. I was surprised when she protested but tried to persuade her that we feel lighter after we share our stories. I was keen for her to tell the story herself but she was unwilling. I asked if I could hold her hand while telling it and she could chime in. Worn down by my persistence, she felt pressed to agree. In retrospect, I wonder why I was so determined. Perhaps, I wanted her to know she could always tell her stories at home.
My father reminds me that this has been a repeating motif in our lives even before I was born. “For we think back through our mothers if we are women”, as Virginia Woolf said. As a child, my mother would run home to spill out her stories to her own mother (often racing to reach before her sisters, so that she could tell her version first). Even in the early years of my parents’ marriage, my mother would stop by to share stories and have tea with her mother on her way home from work.
From ever since I can remember, home has been a place where I could pour out my heart. My parents are accustomed to being patient listeners, as my grandparents were too. As a child, all through my adolescence, and into adulthood, returning to our dining table at the end of the day has kept me grounded. It is where I can be most myself. When I got married, my in-laws inherited this unfamiliar intimacy with courage and grace. Perhaps their own son had never spoken to them with the candour that I did, but they accepted my alien love with all its rough edges.
My daughter was particularly worried that she would fall from grace in the eyes of her paternal grandparents. What if they felt she had not been ‘good’?, she wondered. “Don’t worry,” I insisted. I knew in my heart that if they could accept their daughter-in-law’s transgressions with equanimity then surely they would be able to journey along with their granddaughter as well. But perhaps she had also somehow intuitively picked up on her father’s childhood reticence. Two different dining table cultures were warring within her heart.
She closed her eyes as I began to speak. I told the story lightly. Her grandparents listened wide-eyed with a little laughter. At the end, my father spontaneously and light-heartedly exclaimed, “You wanted to scare your parents, huh?” At that she burst unexpectedly into enraged tears, “No! No! No!” Only then did I realise what had been weighing down her little heart, guilt at the growing understanding that she had done something that had caused us heartache, however momentarily. We reached out to reassure her that we completely understood that she had not intended it.
But for a while she was inconsolable. My father waited patiently for her to calm down, saying nothing she did could ever make us love her any less. My mother scooped her up and tried to reassure her that we’ve all done things like this (and continue to). My father-in-law kissed her on both cheeks and appreciated her thoughtful conclusion. My mother-in-law offered food to soothe her. My husband and I wondered whether we had been right to push her to share her story before she had felt comfortable. “Next time, I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell it yourself,” I promised.
My daughter woke up early the next morning to make breakfast for her friend. He arrived bright-eyed by 8 o’clock. As I flipped pancakes for them and listened to them chat over almond butter and berry compote, I felt a sense of foreshadowing. Who has not experienced the heady excitement of finding delight in another’s company? Whether we are six, or sixteen, it makes us do unexpected things, push up against boundaries, surprising those who’ve loved us all along. With stories, we always find our way back home…