N O N F I C T I O N
Fortressing Time
JANINE MACRIS
“ M
OMMY , IT ’ S LIKE you want to marry the word ‘ in a minute .’” He ducks back down , back into in the corner of his pillow fort , his shirt off because it is too hot in this house , and he is always hot . “ I ’ m always hot ,” he says in the car on the way home from school , during Taekwondo , in the bath . And the ultrasound results the doctors said are normal have to be normal because the doctor said they were , so the heat and the vomiting and the nausea and the cough this week , are all just a stomach bug from school because the seven other kids have the bug too . So I tell him it ’ s normal to be hot . And when he calls for me to re-drape the blanket over the fallen corner , I say , “ In a second ,” and hope that this replaces “ In a minute ,” and that I don ’ t break my promise . But these promises are broken daily , in minutes , in seconds , in time .
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And at night , as he sleeps soundly , snoring in his big-tonsilled , allergyridden breaths , I kneel next to his bed and plead against how many minutes I wasted telling him I would be there in a minute . I could measure the time against the microwave clock counting down the boiling pasta ; I could measure it against my phone ’ s messaging reminders ; but I must choose to measure it against this fleeting innocence , and capture it quickly . Quickly . Before it ’ s too late .
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So the next time , I unzip my black boots I wore all day long in hopes of taking the bulldog for a walk too . And I climb into the hovel he has built , crawling through the vinyl , clown-colored tunnel causing me claustrophobic screeches , and tell him I ’ m almost there , into the living room he has built inside our own living room . When I finally fold my long body into the tight space where five fake votives are flickering under the three books resting against the
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