It’s cold tonight on that bench, but this time of year it always is.  I don’t come here often, only when I’m lying wide awake in bed and the only thing I can see are the museums going past us as we twirl around and Annie’s face beaming atop her majestic ride.  She has the smile of every five-year-old angel.  Her teeth are tiny but straight.  The outside of her lips have the faint stain of fruit punch.  Her eyes are bright and clear with the innocence of someone whose problems are the kinds of things adults laugh about behind kids’ backs.  Her hair is just like her mother’s, the same chestnut brown that looks like it was made to be the color swatch upon which all other brunettes tried to match their own color.  The only difference is that Annie’s is pulled back in a messy pony tail that my wife would never be caught dead wearing in public.  “Doesn’t show any effort” she would say as I told her for the hundredth time she looked amazing and that we were late, as usual.  We had a lot of other disagreements, too.  I thought when we got married the little ones would melt away and things would be idyllic.  Instead, they grew exponentially in number and in scale until she just couldn’t take being around me anymore.  What she could take was Annie, all the way to her sister’s house in Florida.  I don’t think she lets Annie see my letters.

          There are other horses, normal ones with horse manes and tales and the smooth skin that glistens in the sun and even the faint light tonight.  Of course, these ones are painted to be shiny, but I bet a real horse would look just as magical in this moment.  Their heads are cocked at different angles, some with their snouts to the sky and others stately bent as if they are in a parade for a queen.  The legs though, they’re all in mid-flight, giving the impression of a hundred powerful animals galloping in unison.  The blue horse with its dragon scales was the first one Annie saw when she looked into the herd going up and down, up and down, while the world’s largest music box blared out its tones all around us.  I could understand that.  That’s how I felt about her mother the first time I noticed how her cheers were a little more precise and enthusiastic than the rest of the other ribbon-haired, short-skirted squad around her.  She hated basketball, but whether it was school spirit or just her spirit, you would never know from looking at her.

I went to every game that year, and every time I spent half the time staring at her and wondering what I could possibly say to someone like that.  Turned out that all I needed was to run into her at the late-night sandwich shop one night.  She was still in her uniform, her pom-poms sticking half out of the bag slung across her back.  The only options at that time of night were turkey, turkey, or turkey.  I was ahead in line, and when the woman behind the counter asked what I wanted, I said, “The turkey for me, and also one for the pretty lady.”  Only one of them laughed and looked at me with a cute smirk and sparkling brown eyes.  It wasn’t the one with ESTHER written on a nametag attached to her shirt.  It was the one with BULLDOGS in big block letters on hers.  Maria.  Two years later she was mine, and another year after that, Annie was ours.

When I move my head to the side, the single light makes the colors on the blue horse’s scales change color just enough that it looks as if it’s moving.  But not the rising and falling it usually does.  The horse looks like it’s tilting side to side, like it’s trying to shake its head no but can’t move its neck and has to do a full-body motion instead.  Sometimes I wonder if I should just move away so that I don’t come here.  If I were in Cleveland or San Francisco or the middle of nowhere in Iowa, I would just keep lying in bed thinking about my mistakes and maybe coming up with a solution that worked.  But here, 10 blocks from where my life used to be, I can just get up, put on some shoes and a coat and come back to this bench and stare.  It’s been 10 years for god sakes and all I can do is sit here and think about that little girl.  I’ve tried so many times, so many ways to undo it all.  So many 3 a.m. ideas for how to set it right, but somehow at 9 a.m. they are no longer good ones.  The letters are intermittent now.  If I would just get one back from her, or even know that she reads them, I would write to Annie every day.  But since I’m sure Maria stalks the mailbox and throws away any remnants of my presence, it’s hard to stay motivated to try to reach my baby girl.  Huh, baby girl.  I guess she’s not that anymore.

When Maria left, I sat sitting on the couch watching them go.  Maria, striding defiantly toward the door, hugged Annie close to her, trying to make sure the signal about her she should pledge allegiance was clear.  But in that gesture, Maria left Annie’s face looking over her shoulder directly into my eyes.  I saw the love she had for her daddy.  I saw the blue horse shining through, whirling her around in pure delight while the music played in both our heads.  She smiled at me as if to say, “It’s going to be okay, Daddy.  I still love you.”  But it wasn’t okay.  What I was watching was my biggest fear before I got married.  I had these dreams about not being good enough for my family and disappointing them when they needed me the most.  Some nights I dreamt that I couldn’t provide for them and we all went hungry.  Other nights I watched as someone broke into our house and stole all our stuff while all I could do was sit there, a defeated man, holding my crying daughter.  Another dream had me as a criminal whose streak of bad deeds made it impossible for them to even go outside without being ridiculed.  In reality, it wasn’t that dramatic.  I just wasn’t good enough for Maria.  If it weren’t for Annie, I could live with that.  After all, that’s what I thought before I ever spoke to Maria the night I bought her the turkey sandwich and we sat at our table talking so late they actually turned out the lights and nearly locked the door before we got the hint and left.  That’s what I thought before I walked Maria back to her dorm that night, and outside the door to the building surrounded by a courtyard of shrubs and fragrant flowers where I put my hand softly on her neck and kissed her. 

My cell phone says it’s just after 5 a.m. now.  The early November cold is invigorating in a way.  I think it helps me stay focused.  I don’t usually drink beer here.  I don’t usually drink it at all, it’s just that my friend stayed at my place last week and left one behind in my fridge.  I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it away and on my way out tonight for some reason I grabbed it.  I look out on the Mall now and see all of the tourist spots lit up in the same soft light as the carousel, the kind that won’t be necessary in a few hours when the sun comes up and illuminates everything.  It’s peaceful at this hour.  Sometimes earlier in the night you have drunk teenagers roaming around looking for trouble, but right now it’s as quiet as you could ever want.  I get up from my spot on the bench and lean against the black iron fence that protects the carousel both day and night.  I need to get some blood moving in my legs again before I can walk home.  Sometimes I talk to the blue horse because he strikes me as the wisest of all of them.  I look into his eyes and ask him again what I should do.  I stare for a few minutes and listen for his answer.  Everything is still.

I thank him and walk away to begin my walk home along the equally peaceful sidewalks where I once carried a ball of ceaselessly chatting energy on my shoulders.  I can feel her there as we leave her horse behind.  “Write to me, Daddy,” she says.  “Call me, Daddy.  I’m okay.  I want to know that you’re okay.  I want to know you again.  Find me.  Take me to get ice cream.  Take me to get a homecoming dress.  Take me to the movies with my friends.  Do whatever you have to do with mom for everything to be okay.  Find a way.  Find our way.  I love you, Daddy.”