Not Even Solomon

You fold your things, your room, into improvised cases while the father who brought you to this place and has returned again, bleary eyed, paces the corners, making suggestions, waiting gracelessly to take you back to the place he calls your home. You, little daughter fully-grown, undaunted by your chaperone and wearily resigned to your departure, turn from your sweatshirt creasing and toss a smile at my eyes. I drop it (fumbling coyly lest I appear too eager to usurp the province of some well-chosen son) and let it fall among the stacks of books and backs of banners stolen from a University streetlamp. "Maybe, if I'm better, I'll be back in spring." Your maybe is the hardest thing unforeseen and shattering the certainties of the wordless hopes I had nurtured in our small distance. "Yes, yes perhaps." But, still, you are leaving. [first published in the November 1994 edition of First Things magazine.]