Something You Forgot by Rosie Keith

Two hands uniting as one, twisted like twizzlers. Thumbs pressed hard enough to turn red. A bond made from parent to child, friend to friend, boy to girl, heartbreaker to heartbroken. It’s a wonder something so small could mean so much. It can whisper short stories, or speak volumes. Often broken, but never forgotten. It may leave you on edge or completely at ease. Because you didn’t just give someone your average, nonchalant “BS” promise. No! You took the time to grasp their hand in yours allowing their humanity to pulsate against your fingers, becoming one for just a moment, to make something official; a pinkie promise. Something you may never take back.

My mother was the first person to ever break a pinkie promise to me. She was also the person who instilled such a strong belief in these minute, but ever so personal connections. Ever since I could remember my mother has been telling me that one day we would be together; that I’d never have to live with anyone that wasn’t her ever again. “A place of our own,” she says. It’s been about twelve years now, and I have not forgotten the promise she made to me so long ago, and still makes to me today. I can still see it clear as day, like having HD in my head, it is crystal clear.

My grandmother had been steadily concerned of my whereabouts when I was with my mother. At the end of preschool year, she being the head of the family made the ultimate decision to have my aunt take care of me. I had been staying with my aunt, my mother’s sister, since the summer break of my preschool year. It was then where my mother’s hand connected with mine making my first pinkie promise. I was five, and she fourty – two, even at that time I was more adult than she has ever been.

It was late November, my birthday had just passed, and I was sound asleep when my mother crept into the room assigned to me by my aunt. Gently touching my arm she shook me awake, whispering loud enough so only I could hear, “It’s time for school,” she said. Throwing my feet over the bed and rubbing my eyes too hard, I was awake. After stumbling to the bathroom, washing my face, and briskly brushing my teeth with Princess Jasmine bubble gum flavored toothpaste; I was almost ready. My mother helped me into my Caldwell Academy uniform, zipped up my coat and we proceeded out the door. On our way she asked me the usual questions but like any other five year old at eight in the morning I wasn’t very responsive. I’d gotten to school early that day so my mother and I waited inside my Mr. Tuggle’s kindergarten class. She sat across from me staring into my cocoa brown eyes, ones identical to hers; and she began to ask me questions about how I felt living with my aunt. I answered honestly. That’s when she took my little hand in hers, gripping my pinkie just a tad too tight, she promised. Vowed that staying with my aunt wouldn’t be a long term thing, and that she’d been working on getting us a place of our own. Since then I’ve lived in Georgia, Las Vegas, and I’m currently in Chicago, none of which have been with my mother.

That late November day my mother set my heart on something that may never happen. Yet I still believe. Two hands united as one, twisted like twizzlers, thumbs pressed hard enough to turn red. A pinkie promise. Something you may never forget. And indeed, I have not.