Child of my Heart
"What's 'struts'?" Daisy asked, and I showed her. And wee strutted together, all three of us across the grass and onto the path through the woods. We wandered a bit, picking up sticks and rocks and trying unsuccessfully to catch the darting shadows of salamanders. When we got to the caretaker's gate, I tried giving them both a ride, but the hinges were too old and the grass beneath the gate too high to make it much fun. We stopped for a while in the grass beside the road to make clover chains, and as we did I tried telling them the story of Macbeth. But Flora wandered, and while Daisy let her eyes grow wide at the witches and the murder of the king and the appearance of Banquo's ghost, she didn't like the bit about Lady Macbeth scrubbing at the stain on her poor little hand and suddenly. As I spoke, leaned over to put her fingers to my lips. I help her wrist. "It's all right, Daisy Mae," I whispered. I told her it was not something she would have to hear about again until high school.
Walking back through the woods, she said, "Why wouldn't the stain come off her hand, even after she washed it a lot?"
I smiled at her. I had placed bluebells and buttercups into the pigtails I had made for her this morning, and one of the clover chains dipped down over her forehead. "It was only her imagination," I told her. "It wasn't really there. It was all in her mind."
She thought about this for a while, walking with Flora, who still clutched the empty bottle in her hand, "Everything's in your mind," she said. And I said no. I touched the bark of a tree, picked up a fallen branch. "This is real," I said. "And this." I touched her arm. "You are."
"But it's all in my mind, too," she said. She was wearing one of my tennis dresses today, a much better fit than the cheap ones bought by her mother. Her pink shoes were dusty from the gravel and the trail. "If it wasn't in my mind, how would I know about it?"
I tugged at her hair. "You're an old soul, Daisy Mae," I said.
She thought about this for a second. "Is that good?" she said.
"It's what my mother says people always used to say about me."
She smiled, clearly pleased. And then she said, "Yeah, but you remembered more. You remembered heaven from before you were even born."
I've attempted to read other Alice McDermott novels and the ones I've tried have been too sad so I couldn't make it through. Jake's friend, Derek, had Child of My Heart lying around in his apartment and gave it to me so I sat and read it immediately, excited that it wasn't as miserable as the others I'd tried. It is, actually, quite sad but still magnificent and touching. |
