5. The Playground (cont.)

When morning trembled at the edges of the sky, the farmer called to us. Once the children clambered into the wagon, he drove out of the wall and stopped—his very first stop—alongside my crib. I climbed out of the wagon and into the yellow crib, and the children called, “Good bye, Marion! Good bye!” And then, at last, happily, I slept.

When I woke, I wanted to tell Mommy about the horses and the wagon and the farmer, about the children and the playground in my wall. But I knew that if Mommy went to look, the playground wouldn’t be there any more. And perhaps I felt a little guilty about my nighttime frolic. After all, I escaped, not just the bars of my crib, but my mother’s command to lie there facing the wall. So I didn’t say a word.

But the next night, after the door had closed and once more dark enveloped the bedroom I shared with Will, I forced myself to turn toward the wall again. Doing so was hard. Very hard. The deep dark of the wall was still terrifying, despite the sweet memory of the playground it held. But I would do anything, face any fear, if only the children would come once more.

They didn’t come that night, so the next night again I made myself turn into the scary dark...and the next...and the next. And finally a night came when horses and wagon and farmer and children came through the window, exactly as they did the first time. And again, while the rest of my family slept, I played. And again the next morning I told no one where I had been. The playground was my secret.