I want to hold her – this little girl that sits in front of me. Tiny tears cling to her eyelashes, knowing that if they fall, so will the secret — the one she kept, mostly from herself. One salty drop lands upon her thigh, and she says she had told her mother that she didn’t want to have a babysitter anymore. Not this one anyway. But she couldn’t tell her why. She couldn’t say that this young woman frightened her. Wanted her to do bad things. Dirty things. She couldn’t say that she took her behind the barn, (where nothing good ever happened.) I suppose that’s what they always count on, that you won’t be able to say anything. And what she couldn’t say then, she says to me now. She tells me. And I want to hold this little girl. Pick her up. Wipe away tears and replace them with promises. But she has already grown. She has already peaked only bangs above covers during sleepless nights. She has already learned to pocket the secret and dilute it with morning’s light. Learned to take care of her little sisters. No one else would watch them but her. She has already grown into a woman who carries her own children. Who carries me. 

Maybe there always comes a time when the lines become blurred. For mothers and daughters. Sisters. Friends. When we’re all just little hearted girls, trying to hold on, trying to let go, daring both. Trusting each other with tears and stories. 

I trusted my mother. And she trusted me. It would be easy for the story to end there, but it can’t. I won’t let it. Not for me. Nor you. Not for any little girl, no matter what her age. We must be the sisters who keep them safe. Tuck them in with stories of hope and joy, of kindness and progress and freedom and learning…so heads and hearts remain above covers — all night long, and all the days after. 

I wander in and out, around every barn. I am safe because of her. I reach out my hand, so you can feel the same.