When we left daycare, the boy had been holding his stuffed hamster. When we got home, it was missing. It took us a bit to realize, though, so there had been a chance for just about anything to happen. I went out to look for it anyway, retraced our steps to daycare—which was a neighbor’s house just around the corner—and back to the house. I must have done three or four loops, even though it wasn’t like I would miss it. I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. I wanted to save the day. The hamster was actually a mouse. We were calling a lot of things by the wrong names back then. A week or so later, I was walking past the corner where we always waited to cross the street on the way home from daycare and I kicked at the snow piles built up by the plows, the search party having turned recovery effort. On another day, I brought a shovel. When the snow started to melt a while later, I could have recognized that hamster anywhere. I didn’t, though. His dad ended up ordering him a replacement.
Long before the hamster vanished, his dad and I were at a show in Brooklyn with our friends, and his dad wore a hat his mom knitted for him. His mom and dad loved each other so very much, and I loved love. Before we went into the venue, his dad had the hat. When we made it outside, it was missing. I disappeared back inside, scanned the floor. I checked the trashes. I could not show up empty-handed. I wanted to save the day. Here was where I thought I had my sights lined up. I asked one of the people cleaning up if they’d seen a grey knitted hat. It looks handmade, I said, because it is. Someone said yes and that was as close as I’ve ever gotten to what it must feel like to be a glowstick cracked in the dark. I ran out with that hat and stretched it over his dad’s head and his eyes too. The arrow had gone clean through us both, and yet I had this sneaking suspicion I’d missed the mark.
You think you know what love is and then you have to be a glowstick hidden between the couch cushions. Here is what I think: I think sometimes you get one shot, and you hit the wrong target, and because of that, the bullseye doesn’t count.
