Stuck between two doors in the rain

(Pre-pre-script: The song that must accompany this post is "Blackbird." Go down to the playlist and click it on before you read any further...I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

(Pre-Script:

At the end of the day,
pick up the pieces that remain;
a torn hem,
a cup handle, the yarn of doll hair,
brush the dust off your jeans,
the defeat, the collapse,
open up and
paste them together in the scrapbook of your mind...)

it was pouring when I left for the grocery store tonight.

I walked out under a black umbrella,
started the car, turned up the heat,

and then unexpectedly, Ethan ran out, front door wide behind him,
ran out barefoot in the mud, in the rain,
to the car I had just started,

crying, "I want to go with you, I want to go!"
I told him, "no," I said, "go back in the house,

stay home, you need to stay home,

and I"ll be back soon, it's just to get juice,"
so he said, standing in the rain,

"wait, take my sword"
and handed me his plastic sword painted to look metallic and dangerous ,
and then he said,
"Wait, take my guy"
and handed me his plastic Spiderman,
then he ran back to the house, and I locked the car door,

watching to make sure he got safely back in,

but just that fast, the front door was closed and locked, too,

and he was weeping now,

weeping on the front porch under the awning,

out of the rain but close to it,

I saw his face fall as he said "I locked it! It's locked!"

he ran towards the car,

not sure where to go, not sure where to fit,

two doors locked around him, and the pouring rain in between,

but then the front door opened, of course it would,

a father would let his son in,

a father who didn't know the son had gone outside in the first place,

but a son might still not expect that;

If he hadn't ever locked himself out of his own world before,

of course he would imagine the worst devastation,

in that split second it takes for two grown up parents to react,

to get their impulsive 4 year old out of the cold,

out of the wet, out of the dark,

into the warm, the light, the dry

to wait for me to return

with juice, and milk, and maybe an unexpected treat.

-XOXO,