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She Was a Sensitive Child
She was a sensitive child. No one could say exactly when it started, but it had never been so obvious as on the first day of Kindergarten. She cried so hard on the walk back home her mother had to pick her up and carry her. The sobs brought on the hiccups and she was covered with sticky wet tears mixed with mucous and bits of the peanut butter sandwich she hadn’t finished at recess.
Once at home she was plopped into bed, shoes and all, where she slept until the white Persian cat who didn’t belong to them but was allowed inside from time to time purred in her face and woke her up ninety minutes later.
He mother attempted to console her and to get her to open up about what had occurred at school. She hadn’t been injured, at least not physically but something was definitely wrong. Her thick hair was in her face and she didn’t even try to pull it away. When her mother reached out slowly and gently to touch her face she began to cry again, more of a whimper like an injured animal might let out and that was worse.
After taking a few bites of her favorite dinner, Kraft macaroni and cheese from the box carefully mixed up with some canned peas on sale for twenty-nine cents she was ready to talk. There was another girl, no, she didn’t know her name and when she had wanted to climb the monkey bars with that girl and the girl who lived down the street, Mollie…
