My husband ordered me to raise my right hand and swear I’d never be without a planned vacation. That was the night he died. I swore. But I lied. More than ever, I find it hard to play. Tonight, I sit at the kitchen table with our young sons. – the fifth grader mimics my intensity, slicing through pages of math problems; the four-year-old practices the alphabet in rainbow-colored crayons. I am working my way through a crumpled pile of bills. The four-year-old, desperate for a happy mom, pulls tiny cars from the pockets of his milk-pants. He rolls them around, tempting me to play. Foiled, he pulls a pencil from the mug of markers and prints carefully in emerging letters on a tiny slip of paper, then slides the note before my blurry eyes. “Mom, time to play now.”
MARY-FRANCES SCHNEIDER 