Four hours
every Saturday.
I thought it would be simple.
Coloring with children.
Reading stories.
Playing games.
It wasn’t.
I still remembered the waiting room.
Yellow walls.
Blue carpet.
Plastic chairs.
Donated toys.
Picture books with missing pages.
And a giant window facing the parking lot.
The children watched that window constantly.
Every car that entered.
Every door that opened.
Waiting.
There was one little girl I never forgot.
Lily.
Six years old.
Purple ribbons in her pigtails.
Every Saturday, she brought a new drawing for her mother.
A rainbow.
A cat.
A house.
The first two weeks I volunteered, her mother came.
On the third week, she didn’t.
Lily sat beside the window for an hour holding a drawing of herself and her mother holding hands.
At the top, in purple letters, she had written:
ME AND MOMMY.
Eventually, a staff member knelt beside her.
“Your mom couldn’t come today, sweetheart.”
