Punting

It was late….

Darkness swaddled winding concrete pathways, separating injured playing fields, where echoes of parental calls of support lingered just above the distant tree-line.

The sound of slamming car doors bounced, softly, off firs enclosing the parking lot; and warning calls of parents to street-dancing children muffled.

And, that’s why I noticed her; she who was arriving just as everyone else was leaving.

The rubber band she’d twisted, earlier in the day, into her wispy, blonde hair was giving way, mocking facial lines that had deepened as the hours passed. Amidst the shadows, her face suggested Eastern Europe.

Two small girls of similar wisp and structure ran behind her as she began the descent towards the park. Each child clutched voluminous mounds of plastic grocery sacks.

I imagined their small hands cramming the sacks into receptacles dotting the park, above signs that read “Please clean up after your pet.” I’d always wondered who filled them.

But, they had no pet with them.

I slid behind the wheel of my own car, juggling my keys while I watched. The girls danced excitedly, taking turns leading the tiny caravan, unaware of their mother in a way that said they knew she was there, and always would be.

Just as they breached the fir-line, the woman slid her cellphone out of the pocket of her belted shorts.

And, I recognized the opportunity…and kinship.

I have been that woman…