THE SUN (2021)

My hands, my shoulders, my legs pool in the hot sun. “I’m melting again,” I decide, and she shakes her head.

“You’re sweating.” But I’ve already chosen to be melting, lying on the floor because it’s me. It’s me until I’m all cleaned up. “You’re sweating, let me wipe you down.” 

“That’s silly. You don’t wipe down spills, you wipe them up. You can wipe me up, but you can’t wipe me down, I won’t let you.” One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight seconds, she picks me, wipes me, up. But I’m not clean yet. “I’m not clean yet!” 

“You can take a bath later.” My eyes well up, because I’m melting and if I take a bath, I’ll go right down the drain with the rest of the water. But she’s already turned back around, pushing Elijah’s stroller on the gravelly concrete that’s not me anymore. I don’t know if he’s melting, too. I don’t know if such small things can melt like that.

But you’re melting. Oh, but I’m melting, and my ice cream melted yesterday, and we’re small things. She calls me that, her small thing, so I think Elijah can melt too. But he’s under the hood of the stroller, so if he’s melted or evaporated or condensated I won’t know until we get home, but I think she’ll know if he’s all over the stroller now. 

“Is Elijah melting, too?” 

“Babies don’t melt.” But I don’t believe her, because I was a baby once, and I’m melting now. 

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m your Mom,” she says, “because I’m your Mom, and I know everything.”

Elijah prods at the ducks in the tub as we sit in the shared porcelain. Feeble quacks, I don’t think they’re feeling well. I drip onto the floor and into the cabinet to get them some medicine. The medicine won’t let me inside, even though I hear the ducks coughing. I look back and it’s Elijah, small duck in his small mouth. Maybe that will make the duck feel better if I can’t give her medicine, but it might make Elijah sick, and Mom said Elijah’s my responsibility now so I take the duck out of his mouth. 

“Why’d you do that?”, he asks, grabbing at the rubber. “Why’d you do that?”

“Elijah, you can’t get hurt. Mom said so.”

“Where’s Mom?” I don’t know how to answer that, so I pull out the drain, pull out Elijah before he gets sucked in, even though he isn’t melting. 

Mom leaves while we are sleeping, though I am awake, from the lights outside and the noise. It hurts my ears, so I take Elijah and hide him in the closet while he sleeps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight minutes. Through the flash of open under the door, Mom whispers, “Take care of your brother until I come home.” When things go quiet and I step out, I can’t see her anymore. It’s too much night-time, and even if it were morning, she would still be gone.

When the police find us, we are asleep in our bed, and Mom is still not home. “Your Mom told me to tell you to come with me”, so we do, sweaty hand in sweaty hand, we melt into each other. The sun isn’t out yet, but we stick to each other’s grasp in the morning heat until we are pulled apart, brought to stranger moms who we don’t know anymore. 

The middle-of-the-day sun is hot. I know this because my mother is melting, asleep on the bench. Stranger woman picks me up from my mother’s stroller so easily I think it must be right. I know to be silent, and I don’t know why. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight seconds. I start to melt in the heat, too, and I look into her eyes and start welling up. 

“Shh...shh...it’s just me. I’m your Mom. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you, right here, right in my arms.” I am her arms, her shirt, her hurried walk. I bounce in her arms, I gurgle. My mother is the bench now, and I am my Mom.