Before seven, Barcelona was still
a city we could have slept in.
Instead, we woke the girls,
bathed them, dressed them,
gathered the things children need
and the things you bring
because you cannot bear to need them.
Arya had a fever.
I touched her forehead.
Then touched it again,
as though my hand might find
a different answer.
We had missed breakfast.
Near the meeting point
I found a shop
and bought bananas,
chips, cookies, drinks—
enough to make the duffel heavy.
I could do something about breakfast.
The bus was large.
There were only a few of us.
We took the seats at the back
and watched Barcelona
give way to the road.
We usually stay two weeks
when we take the girls somewhere.
Give them time.
Let them wake slowly.
Yet here we were.
The excursion was paid for.
The mountains were waiting.
Arya wanted to sleep.
She moved closer.
At home I tell her to finish,
to read the question again,
to take her time
and do it properly.
Now she pressed against me
with the old, familiar insistence
of a child who would climb
inside her father
if only there were room.
I put my arm around her.
There was room enough.
She slept against me.
I opened my laptop
with the hand I had free
and settled it on my lap.
A little work.
A pause whenever she stirred.
Beyond the glass
the mountains rose.
I shifted the laptop
before I shifted her.
We stopped in a village
whose name I have lost.
I have kept the square,
the café,
the old buildings,
the coffee.
Somewhere in my mind
I have made it Dutch.
It wasn’t.
Memory is careless
with a country
and exact about a cup.
We ate pastries.
Our guide made us laugh.
The girls cooperated
with the morning.
For fifteen minutes
we were the family
I had imagined
when I booked the trip.
Then we climbed aboard again.
Spain became France.
Later, France
would become Andorra.
Three countries in a day.
I had thought the girls
would find that astonishing.
But the road went on
between the trees.
The mountains kept their shapes.
Arya leaned against me
on either side of the border.
At another stop
we found a bathroom.
She wanted little to eat.
I watched her eyes,
offered water,
listened when she spoke.
I kept looking
for some small thing
that would tell me
how the rest of the day would go.
In Andorra
we sat down to lunch.
We ordered something for Arya.
She tried it.
Then she was sick.
There was the table,
the food,
the sudden work of cleaning up.
I wanted her comfortable.
I wanted her unembarrassed.
I wanted everyone
to give her a moment.
A little to drink.
No more food just yet.
Across the table
my own lunch waited.
It was excellent.
I remember that, too.
I took a bite
and looked at her.
Another bite.
Another look.
Afterward we walked.
Jiya fell asleep
in her stroller.
Water rushed through the city,
past buildings,
beneath the streets we crossed.
I remember its force.
I remember looking down at it
and then back at Arya.
She was beginning
to look around.
We went into a shop.
There she found something.
Then something else.
She wanted me to see.
She wanted me to listen.
She had reasons
for preferring one small thing
over another.
I cannot remember
what those things were.
I remember being glad
she wanted them.
Let her look.
Let her take her time.
Let her bring me
one more little treasure
whose purpose
requires an explanation.
All morning
I had watched her face.
Now she was busy
watching the shelves.
Then came chocolate,
ice cream,
the return of appetite.
I heard myself breathe out.
There she was.
On the way back
we crossed the countries again.
I would need photographs now
to put the villages in order,
to name the places
where we stopped.
But I remember her weight
against me,
and the work I did
one-handed.
I know the duffel
was full of things
I had bought
before the shops were properly awake.
And I know how gladly
I stood in that store
while Arya made up her mind.
At the hotel
she settled in
with her iPad.
Shoes lay where we had left them.
Bags stood open.
Nobody had much to say.
We had taken the girls
through three countries.
Arya had found
a comfortable place to sit.
I watched her choose
something on the screen.
For the first time that day,
I let her forehead be.