Same, Kid
A story about loss
It shouldn’t stand out as a memorable day. In fact, it was decidedly unmemorable in nature, as I have repeated this day biannually since I was a child: teeth cleaning day.
I hated going to the dentist, but one of the many neuroses that my mother had passed on to me was the necessity of regular visits to the dentist. “Your smile is your first impression,” she had crooned as four-year-old me squirmed in the dentist’s chair. She repeated this maxim often as I got older, especially when I started pointing out that my friends weren’t being forced by their parents to go to the dentist multiple times a year.
I guess her lectures about dental hygiene really stuck with me because now that she’s gone, I feel like visiting the dentist is the least I can do to honor her memory. According to my ex, it’s the only habit I got from my mother that I don’t need extensive therapy to break.
The bus was late. That’s the only thing that made this trip to the dentist different from any other trip. Service had been getting less and less reliable as city budgets got tighter and tighter. That’s the only reason I saw her standing there in that red dress.
I was sitting at the bus stop, trying (unsuccessfully) to work up the courage to call the dentist’s office and let them know I would be late. I hate making phone calls these days because every place you call has replaced real people with those automated answering systems. They never have an option for the thing you really need.
She was the only person I had ever really enjoyed talking on the phone with. Or at least who I cared about enough to pretend I enjoyed talking on the phone with. Now the only people who ever call me are telemarketers.
I had been staring at my phone, contemplating this dreaded phone call, when my gaze was drawn upwards by a jet flying overhead. When I brought my eyes back down to Earth, there she was. I had taken this route to the dentist at least 10 times since the last time she walked away from me, so it felt fitting that I spotted her as she walked away. It’s how I always remembered her.
Against my better instincts, I called her name. Or maybe I just thought I did because she didn’t turn around. I was about to walk across the street to say hello to her, but just as I stood up, the bus arrived. If I didn’t take this bus, I would definitely have to call the dentist’s office, so I got in line to board.
I chose a seat that would allow me to look at her one more time, and it was only then that I noticed she wasn’t alone. There was a child with her that couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 years old. He was crying, and she held him in her arms in an attempt to console him. I knew I shouldn’t stare, but how often do you get to observe someone you once loved in a moment of vulnerability like that?
It wasn’t until the bus pulled away that I noticed the red balloon floating away and that the child was grasping at the air in an effort to get it to return to him. He was too young to understand how this worked.
I laid my head on the cool glass, watching as the red dot got farther and farther away, and whispered, “Same, kid. Same.”
Thank you for reading! This story was inspired by a writing prompt to write a story incorporating three random things written down by a classmate: dentist, telemarketer, and balloon.
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