Tomorrow and All the Days After

Her four children press in close: two on one side, one on the other, one nestled in her lap. As expected, they ask for the next chapter of the fictional tale about the man who can’t find his wife. They are hard on this man in the way only children can be; they are critical of his inability to read signs and portents. Tonight, when he tumbles into the world’s most obvious hole in the ground and is menaced by a legion of disheveled dirt fairies, they roll their eyes and groan. And laugh. They always laugh. 

“Exactly how did those fairies end up in that hole?” they ask. Their mouths are stained with spaghetti sauce. Well, she says as she cleans them up with a tissue, it’s their punishment for choosing to be obtuse when communicating with the other fairies in their lives. They nod as if they understand. “And why are those fairies such a mess?” Because, she explains, their finery has been defiled by mud and ripped by the sharp edges of buried rocks and stray acorns. 

Despite their exasperation, they root hard for the hero. They clamor for him to triumph over his troubles but also wish for his failure because they don’t want the story to end. They don’t like endings. They mourn like widows when a game of Hi Ho! Cherry-O is over, when Lolo and Lola depart, when the sun sets, when a song fades into silence. This is why, when their mother’s energy begins to flag, they pinch her legs to prod her along. She complies as directed, though if anyone bothered to ask, she’d have to admit that she’s lost the narrative thread.  

She finds reprieve when the lock turns in the door and their father makes his boisterous entrance. “Are you hungry,” she says. “I made such and such or such and such.” Sometimes she tells him that she’s cooked something he especially likes, something like lasagna or kare kare, even though she has not. Nine times out of ten he will say, “I’ve already eaten,” and then she experiences a thrill from having told a lie that she will never be caught in. After this he works the children into a frenzy with some lifting and spinning and tossing and running around the coffee table. She takes the opportunity to use the bathroom without interruption. When she returns, he sees it as a sign, one he reads as permission to exit the area. He tosses a stuffed monkey and an errant block into a basket on his way to the den. “Where’s he going?” the children ask, still flushed from play. 

Mother and children rearrange themselves on the couch, and the story continues. The hero walks into a tree while reading his compass and is knocked unconscious for three days. He’s found and cared for by a beautiful engkanto with soft hands and a voice that’s deep like the ocean. The children are enthralled with the being’s grey eyes, its satin pajama pants, its assortment of black teas and sweet biscuits. A few hours after leaving this refuge, the man encounters, of course, a tornado which knocks him off his trajectory and lifts him into the air where he spins and spins. “He’s spinning for a long time!” the children say. They laugh like crazy because he’s really so inept and ridiculous. 

The hero eventually spins into a field of poppies and is rescued by a gnome-like creature called, their mother says, a dwende. It takes the man to his home which is located in the trunk of an enormous and quite ancient tree. “What kind of tree?” they ask, and she says a clumeptekt tree and they almost call her bluff, but then look at each other and let it slide. The dwende serves hot cocoa and soft pretzels and some strawberries he grows in pots just outside the doorway. The man explains all that has happened to him. Like Odysseus, he says, he is simply looking for a way back home to his children and wife. The dwende begs to differ. The dwende says that doesn’t sound at all like what the man is doing. The man takes umbrage and the two end up in a wrestling match, the outcome of which doesn’t need to be announced because the children already know: the man loses. Of course he loses. His injuries will prevent him, yet again, from making any progress on what is apparently a doomed journey. 

It’s tricky to bring the story to a close. As soon as she says, “And that’s all.. . . .” the children begin to squeal in protest and she raises her voice and adds, “FOR NOW,” which stops them immediately. She then pivots into her favorite part of their ritual. “Okay, are you ready?” she asks.

“Yes!” They move to the rug, tuck their legs under themselves, and look up at her. “We will now field questions, Mama,” they say. “Please begin.” 

“Brujas or talking birds?” She pulls a pen and small notepad from her back pocket. 

“Both!”

“Earthquakes or stormy seas? 

“The second one.”

“Man who smokes a pipe or man with three arms?”

“Definitely pipe.”

“Upside-down world or backwards world?”

They touch the tops of their heads to the ground and stare at her backwards through their legs. “Upside-down!”

“Naughty raccoons or strangely helpful foxes?” 

Sometimes a debate ensues and grows excessively loud and animated to lure their father—she thinks—from wherever it is he goes when the bedroom door closes. After a few moments they wave their hands as if swatting at flies and say oh never mind, never mind, he must be with his engkanto, his dwende, his fairy. She nods yes because it’s true; she knows it’s true. Before their disappointment overwhelms, she interrupts with more questions. She records their responses so she can incorporate them into the tale tomorrow and all the days after. It’s the only way she can continue because, to be honest, she ran out of ideas a long time ago. And besides: it’s their story, too.