Teeter, Totter

The little boy made his way down the slide for the sixth time in a row. The slide was his favorite. When his mother took him to the park it was straight up the ladder and down the slide. Beating down on his pale canvas, the heavy sun colored his face red. Other children ran in circles around the playground in a frenzied game of freeze tag, with their parents watching from a picnic. He ran in circles around the slide, up the ladder, and back down again. He let himself go.

“Be careful up that ladder. Don’t fall. We don’t want to have to clean you up later if we don’t have to!” His mother yelled from her magazine on the bench. The boy’s mother liked the bench. Far away from the kitchen and the bills and the cleaning and the lonely, unmade bed. She was free from her regrets and the hauntingly happy memories that wrote themselves into every lyric playing in her headphones. He left her some three years before. Back when the winter cold started to sting her cheeks, and the cool autumn breeze left the door open, just in case. But now, she just read the magazine.

He used to set his briefcase on the floor by the counter and then proceed to untie his shoes, leaving them piled next to his work. His laces were always dirty and untied, like he bought them that way. She always had to put his shoes in the closet unless it was on Friday. Fridays were different because he wore tennis shoes on Friday. He would run upstairs to change so he could work on the yard. She didn’t mind cleaning up after him and even doing the cooking.

He couldn’t resist a salad followed by cheesy lasagna. She loved him through her selflessness, and she was selfless cause she loved him. He would leave a cup by the sink. Every time he brushed his teeth, he would refill the cup with fresh cold water and soak the brush until he brushed again. He couldn’t start the car without having his seatbelt firmly in place and he could never keep a fire burning. In the winter he would wear bright sweaters. Really bright sweaters. They were pink or they were purple or they were yellow. Or they had stripes or they had an argyle pattern. He would wear a navy blue tie under his cotton expressions and he would insist on popcorn laced around the Christmas tree.

Sometimes, in the tension between that fall and winter, she found herself in escalating arguments about the color of the curtains, or what day of the week they drank mimosas with the neighbors. He had to find something wrong in every word that was said.

“How do you know that’s what she meant? Maybe she was just having a bad day?” He started to pick at every word she said. All she wanted was to vent.

“Why are we out of towels? Did you not realize I put the dirty towels in their separate hamper for you?”

Did he not realize she did everything she could? This was however near the closing credits. He was planning on leaving just after the family Easter egg hunt.

The little boy climbed the rungs once again. He grabbed the rail to pull himself all the way back up to the top before screaming the whole way down the mirrored slide. This time, he turned around and suctioned his way back up with all his might. He scrambled to the top and sat on the ledge, dangling his untied, dirty-laced sneakers. They narrowly scraped the top step. He sat there in a daze, watching his mother as she fiddled with the radio and moved on to the paper. She looked up at her son on the slide and smiled. He smirked back and continued his daze, watching the pearly clouds drift past the sky’s blue.

“Hey,” called his mother as she strolled to the bottom of the slide. “Hello up there!” She cocked her head to the side and playfully threw her hand on her hip. “Psst!”

The boy turned around grinned down to his mother.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Sitting”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Well mister, what do you want to do?”

“I dunno.”

“How about the teeter-totter?”

“Ok, but I hate the teeter-totter?”

“What? Why? It is fun!”

“It is hard, and scary. What if I fall off and hurt my elbow or something? How about something else?”

The boy turned, pushed off the railing and slid down the slide as she drifted out of the way. “It is easy, I’ll show you.” She said. They ran hand in hand over to the wooden plank, one with glee and anticipation, the other with a hesitant, growing excitement.

“Just sit down here and hold on, ok? Hold still, so I can get on and I’ll show you.” She skipped to the other side and jumped on. “Ok, when you’re ready, push off, and I’ll come down to the ground. It’s easy.”

“But what if I fall? I don’t want to get up that high,” he whined.

“You have to! It is fun, I promise. You won’t fall.”

“I want to, but I am scared. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Come on, you can’t totter if you won’t teeter! Just push off!”

After a silent moment of uncertainty, the little boy pushed off with all the nervous might he could muster, propelling himself high into the air, hair fanning back then blowing over his closed eyes as he held on for dear life. He erupted with laughter as his mother teetered back down to the ground.

“Let’s go again!” he giggled. “Let’s go again.”