Lillian on Life Read Free

date—holding a door with no need to put a hand on me to usher me through it—reminded me of Poppa, and I liked them for it, but not if it lasted too long.
    Come to think of it, when Poppa held a door for Mother and me, we’d both let Mother go through first, then I’d go through, and he’d touch me. He always touched me when I went through a door.
    There were other hands distracting me, early in my second year, when those of us studying early childhood education were placed in nursery schools for experiential training. When I got back to our room at the end of those days, I wasthe one standing in front of the mirror, playing with my hair, picking the glue out of it, showing off the finger paint under my nails, telling stories of adoration and frustration, but most of all remembering the little hands on me. It felt like all the energy of the world was coming to me through the tiny palms the children would place on my calves to steady themselves or get my attention. I was supposed to put them down at naptime and teach them to calm themselves, but I couldn’t. I’d keep one or another in my arms on some pretense—I couldn’t get a shoe untied, I needed to wipe a runny nose—just to feel them go a little heavier in my arms and see that final instinctive reach toward my neck as I put them down and they allowed sleep to take over. Their hands gave me goose bumps.
    There was one little girl named Joan. She was the tiniest one in the group, with soft dark ringlets that reminded me of me, and a methodical approach to playing that kept her one step behind the other babies. I was standing in the doorway one breezy October day, watching the others play on the little playground and also waiting for Joan to finish lining up all the dollies so they could go to sleep. A few times before, she had just pushed unsteadily past me through the door when she was done, but this time she patted the back of my knee, and when I turned around she had her arms upand her head tipped all the way back, throat exposed and pulsing, the way little children do to signal that they really mean it and they’ll probably make a fuss if you don’t agree. It was as if we’d already been communicating, and she was just taking it up a notch. “Oh, sugar,” I said as I picked her up and sat her on my hip. “You all worn out from putting your babies to bed?” She just looked out at the playground, and seemed contented to stay and look, her body still, not leaning forward and kicking the way some of the children did to make you go somewhere. So I looked too. We stood in the doorway like mother and child, like wife and child looking out from a home, keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the family playing. Her left arm was behind my shoulder, and after a while I felt her little fingers idly exploring the hair at the back of my neck.
    Goose bumps.
    We all had a meeting with the head of the department at the end of that term to discuss the feedback from the teachers we had been assisting, and to receive our next assignment. Her name was Mrs. Wade. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and no makeup at all. She resembled an aging movie actor, Spencer Tracy maybe, in sort of the way Margaret Mead’s face was a practice run for Anthony Hopkins. She had square gray teeth, and bright eyes. She told me she’dreceived a glowing report and that I was clearly well suited to the purpose of helping children learn and grow. There was a little bit of concern regarding my use of time.
    â€œYou mean I wasn’t efficient?”
    â€œMore that you didn’t check the clock quite often enough,” she said. “Do you recall having to be reminded that it was time for another activity, or lunch, quite a lot?”
    I thought. “Maybe. A few times. But Mrs. Wade,” I said, “the babies! I couldn’t take my eyes off them to look up at the clock; they were just too sweet and interesting. I didn’t