Take My Hand

Ellie stood with her mother at the end of the sidewalk. The pink ice cream shop sat just across the busy intersection, its white chairs lined up outside like they were waiting for someone.

It wasn't far down—six inches, maybe seven—but she could feel the difference in her stomach, the way the concrete simply stopped and the black road began. It was the line between what she could see and what she had to believe.

The cars seemed enormous as they passed. They came from both directions at once, which seemed like cheating. Their hot wind smelled like gasoline and made her eyes sting. A bus passed so close she could feel it tug at her dress. She stepped back, one step, two, until her shoulders pressed against her mother's legs.

"Take my hand, Ellie."

Motionless, Ellie watched the black road.

The traffic light was so high she had to tip her whole head back to see it. To her, it was just a dark box with circles that changed color for reasons she couldn't figure out. When the light turned red, the cars stopped. Not because they wanted to, she thought, but because something made them. Something bigger than the cars themselves—something that held even the noise and motion in its order.

Her mother knew. She'd crossed this street before. She knew where the uneven parts were. She knew which direction to look in first. She knew how long they had once the signal changed. She knew it was the right time to cross the black road.

Ellie looked at the signal across the street. An open palm facing her. Stop. Don't. Stay where you are.

"I don't want to," Ellie said.

"I know." Her mother's hand was still there, still waiting. "But the ice cream shop is on the other side."

A flash of pink between the cars. She believed it was there. But believing it was there and getting to it were two different things. She knew the black road was wide enough for everything that could hurt her.

"What if they don't stop?" she asked.

"They'll stop."

"But what if one doesn't?"

Her mother knelt. Ellie heard the slight crack her knees made, the sound of something given up for the sake of getting lower. Her face was level with Ellie's face, and her eyes were serious now. For a moment, she saw not the road but her daughter—the small tremor in her mouth, the shine gathering in her eyes, the soft curl at her temple damp from the heat. Fear did not make Ellie smaller; it made her unbearably precious. The instinct to gather her up and never let the world near her again rose so suddenly it almost stole her breath.

Her mother had been a child on a curb once. Not this curb. A different one, in a different city, where the street was wider and there was no signal to tell her when it was safe. There had been no ice cream shop on the other side. No white chairs. No suggestion of something sweet. There had been nothing on the other side except the fact that she could not stay where she was. She would not have survived without crossing that road—without trusting what she could not control.

She never told Ellie this. She never would.

But it was there in the way she reached out her hand now. Palm up. Fingers open. Not grabbing. Not pulling. Waiting. The way no one had waited for her.

"I won't let anything happen to you. But you have to take my hand."

This was not a promise Ellie could verify. It was not a fact like the color of the traffic light or the existence of the ice cream shop. It was something else, something in her mother's voice, in her hand. Open, steady, certain.

Her mother's hand was the most familiar thing in the world, and yet taking it now felt like something new. Something that required a decision she hadn't been asked to make before. Because this wasn't the porch steps or the pool. This was the black road, where the enormous things moved, and her mother was asking her to step off the curb and into it.

Ellie reached up. Not because she wasn't afraid, but because she wanted to believe.

Her mother's fingers closed around hers—not tight, but complete. Every finger accounted for. Every gap filled. The grip said I have you without saying anything at all.

They stepped off the curb together.

The black road was wider than it looked. From the sidewalk it had seemed crossable, finite, a distance she could measure in steps. But now that she was in it, the white lines stretched in both directions, and the far sidewalk seemed to recede. She was aware of the cars on either side, still and waiting, their windshields reflecting the sky back at her like dark mirrors. She tightened her grip.

Her mother adjusted her stride—shorter steps, matching Ellie's pace without needing to be asked. Her eyes moved once to the left, once to the right, a quick accounting Ellie wasn't meant to see. Ellie's shoes made small sounds against the asphalt. Her mother's made their particular sound, the one she knew.

With her head down, Ellie focused on her steps. Maybe the enormous things wouldn't notice her if she was quiet enough. With each step, she could feel her chest tighten, her breath quicken, but she resisted the urge to run back to the safety of the curb.

The asphalt was warm through her shoes, the stored heat of the whole afternoon pressing up through the soles. Above, there was nothing. No awning, no ceiling, no porch roof. Just sky. The space between two sidewalks where nothing belonged to anyone.

Halfway there, Ellie looked up. Her mother was looking ahead, toward the far curb, toward the pink shop, toward whatever came next. But her hand held tightly to Ellie's hand.

The signal blinked its warning. Around them, the cars shifted in their patience.

Ellie held on, and they walked.