We are relieved to have three days a week together since the courts ruled in summer. I stood alone in the courtroom, raising my hand, asking the judge the ramifications of what the opposing attorney had said. I just think a set schedule will help us all, I said not knowing whether to use the microphone or not. I just think clarity — now my daughter’s small rainboots tromp in front of me through the damp forest.

We are behind what we refer to as the Big Park with the Big Slide. For a long time we would come here because I didn’t know where else to go with her. I could come here and sit on the bench at the bottom of the Big Slide and pretend to watch her plummet down the concrete twists and turns, though it was the immense oak’s aortic spread over the slide that I steadied myself on. Following its branches overhead until the spell was broken by my daughter’s shrill cries of excitement. And I would suddenly stand with the backs of my legs against the bench and smile at her, clap dumbly, and watch her climb the stairs wanting to emulate the older girls ahead of her, skinny, long-haired girls in cut-off shorts, mothering her towards the height of the oak.  

Sometimes my daughter would pull me into hikes with other children and their mothers. We had found a blackberry patch a quarter mile up, near a swimming hole. Some of the mothers would abandon their strollers half way up the trail as they talked about schools, about naps, over their shoulders to where I kept up the rear.

Well, my days, I’d say, and I would see in their shoulders the hesitation to turn and look again, the understanding that this changed things walking out into the forest.

No, yeah, that’s great, they’d say after a time, it seems like she’s adjusting well.

We do a quiet time, I’d say to allay the tension.