“Please, can you hold my hand?” I asked the young woman who had called my mother. “I’m scared.” I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to be strong and funny and to let this just roll off me, I wanted to believe that this wasn’t a big deal – that I could put a band-aid on this one, all by myself. But after telling another person I was frightened, it became clear to me that I wasn’t tough enough to do this on my own. My mom wasn’t there and I was surrounded by strangers – so I did what made me feel like I was close to my family, that it was right before bedtime, or at church: I began to pray.
Stopping in McCarren Park at twilight made me feel like I was in a foreign film sitting on a park bench drinking wine in a black beret and a scarf, when I was in fact sitting on patchy brown grass, wearing sports shorts and running sneakers and drinking a Bud Light Tall Boy in a brown paper bag.
