A History

By Elizabeth Smith

“Come lie down for a nap,” Mom said, patting the bed.

The sun peeked through the gap between the thick drapes. Who would want to lie in bed on such an afternoon? To my little mind, a nap was a sentence to prison.

But with all my siblings still studying at school or living independently, Mom probably didn’t want me to wander off to the creek or creep around the house looking for her hidden stash of chocolate while she was resting. So we would lie on top of the comforter on her ocean of a bed so that we wouldn’t jumble the sheets.

“Can we play now?” I asked after five minutes.

“Not yet,” she whispered and placed her large, soft hand on top of mine.

Soon her mouth would relax, and her breath would slow. I knew she was really out when she exhaled through her lips, a puffing noise. Then I slipped my hand out from underneath hers and ran off to check the dining room cupboards for chocolate.


A breath of sleep smooths
the skin. It brushes through thoughts
tangled in the mind.


Today I lug my baby, still buckled in the infant car seat, through the door. My three-year-old daughter skips behind me, holding the coloring page from today’s trip to the children’s section of the library. My mind is too slow to read the books we checked out, and my body is too tired to supervise her in the yard. Without me, she might open the gate and run off to who knows where.

“Come lie down for a nap,” I say.

She looks up at me through her bangs and frowns, but soon she joins me on my mattress.

My bed is bare today; the sheet ripped last night, and I haven’t replaced it yet with the spare in the closet. So I slip into a sweater and tuck my girl under her plush blanket with stars. She strokes my nose. She strokes my arm. She pulls my hand on top of her and sandwiches it in her armpit.

After five minutes I get the rest I need, but I am sentenced once more: her mouth relaxes and her chin points downward. Her breath slows into a wheezing snore.

I slip my hand out from underneath her arm and sneak off to the chocolate hidden above the refrigerator.


History reveals
human nature: a wheel turns
but does not travel.