One of my earliest memories is of my mother awakening us in the middle of the night, with her finger pressed to her lips in a shushing motion.  “Let’s play a game of hide and seek.” , she began.  Her hair was long and dark, her blue eyes penetrating mine.  “But we must not make a sound.”  I saw suitcases in the corner, and our clothes were put on in a hurry.  Silent dressing of three children, as I was the oldest…I looked at my younger sister and put my finger to my lips as my mother had done to me.  My baby brother with his sparse blonde hair peeking through the the crib rails.

“Shhhhhh…we are going to hide, and now don’t make a sound.”  The quiet whispers as we went down the stairs…with my little sister in tow.  A low rumbling sound of an awaiting cab as we made it out the door, In the dead of night, with amber street lights…swishing by.  Feeling the rocking motion of wanting to sleep, during this game of hide and seek, leading us to a bus terminal the crowds not so thick, and tired blinking eyes of flourescent blindness. Climbing the steps with toddler legs to feel the stiffness of false comfort of a seat…as I looked out the window to see the flashing of the streetlights as we drove out of Chicago that hyponitized me into a deep sleep.

That was the night my mother left my father when I was barely four years old.

Memory