'Bothersome'

It was getting dark out when Sabrina wanted to go down the street to get her friend, who would be staying the night with us. I caught her as she moved towards the door with urgancy and said, “Hold on- I’ll drive you! It’s getting dark..”



“Are you sure, I don’t want to bother you?”

You say in your ten-year old way.

It catches my attention

And I think…

How many days have I let life get in the way?

“No, of course not- why would you think that?”

You shrug it away

Like you often do

But it shrugged onto my shoulders

Stays.

Like the gloss of a raindrop

Or the sting of the sun

I feel it tingling as we get in the car

Fiddling aimlessly at the radio

Buckling up our belts

Staring at the road ahead

“Please don’t think you bother me”

Her smile commands attention

Dispersing the awkwardness of the conversation

“I know sometimes I am tired and stressed..”

I offer these words to mend that hole

The part of her that thinks she bothers me

“But you are NOT a bother!”

I look at her smiling face

and her carefree nature

The way her curly hair clumps across her eyes

“I promise-I’ll do better”

And when she goes into the house

I open the glove box and pull out a post-it

Letting the blue marker bleed into the thin paper

“I love you Sabrina”

I wrote.

And tucked it into her book

as it Layed open on the seat beside me

Because little sisters shouldn’t grow up feeling like a bother.