5. The Playground (cont.)

They wouldn’t be able to reach my new window on the second floor, I was sure. So I remained lying on my side, determinedly facing into the deep darkness until finally it happened, all of it...again.

The dappled horses appeared at the window on the other side of the room at the foot of Will’s bed. The farmer drove the wagon filled with children through the window. Then they followed along the wall beside Will’s bed, Will’s bed that would be mine so very soon, and behind the blue desk that would now live in his room and along the wall next to my crib. And finally horses and wagon pulled out into the middle of the floor.

“Come on, Marion,” the children called. “Come and play!”

And I rose, threw one leg over the side of the crib, scooted myself over and slid to the floor. The linoleum rug was cold against my bare feet, startlingly cold. But though the cold curled my toes, I didn’t care. I would go with the children to the playground. And maybe, just maybe, this time I would decide to stay. Maybe when the farmer called us all back to the wagon, I would take my friends’ hands and run deeper into the wall, into this place where my mother could not follow, and we would live in the nighttime playground forever.