Five Days

Our departure flight was quickly approaching. Considering all the delays and set-backs we had experienced the past seven weeks, June was still better than October, which is the month we originally expected the whole thing to go down.

 

We spent our mornings running errands for the trip, including loading up the freezer with Francis-appropriate food while he house-sat during the summer. We settled on pizzas, pizza rolls, fried chicken, ice cream drumsticks, and a gallon of milk to start him off. Would probably add more later.

“Well,” I said to Puck at the check-out, “do you think Francis will eat all this up in a week?”

“I could!” Puck announced.

“You’re not though,” I reminded him. “This is for Uncle Francis.”

But Puck had already seen the lady in line behind us, setting various forms of glassware on the conveyor-belt.

Puck’s eyes gleamed. “Ooh! Glasses! So many things to smash! I wish I had a rock!”

I shushed him a little, but the checker just laughed and shook her head at this pretense of vandalism. “What a boy.”

 

I flipped on the game somewhere in the noon hour, while Puck amused himself with the old blue stethoscope Grandma gave him years ago. He listened to any sound and texture he could think of until it was time for him to return to his room and continue cleaning.

That’s what we spent an hour working on together after the game ended. By four o’clock, Puck’s and Yali’s room was approved and ready to go.

Then I got the emailed electronic visas followed by a call from San Francisco. “I am putting your passports in the pouch now. I will send it today.”

I guess that was the last step.

 

Puck ran outside for an hour after dinner, slogging through heavy puddles like a train in his flip-flops. He doesn’t mind entertaining himself. I watched from the windows with my laptop as he began damming up the flow of rain water down the street with blockades of worm-rich mud.

“Look, Mom! I dammed it up!” he yelled from the street. No surprise, I could hear him crystal clear, even with the windows closed.

 

Puck had one more thought he yelled out to me a few minutes after I tucked him into bed, “MY

CONSCIENCE IS SO HIGH THAT I EVEN HAD TO INFORM YOU THAT I TURNED ON MY LIGHT TO PICK A FLECK OF SKIN OFF MY FOOT!”

 

“It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me.” – Charles Spurgeon

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Jamie Larson
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