She has the scrunched face of an inventor,
as though her brain is working so hard
it is chewing on the inside of her face.
She has been under our dining room table
all afternoon, building and tearing down,
and building again.
I am banned from looking at it,
which means I have to deliver snacks
with my eyes closed.
But I go along with it,
not to humour her,
but because I want her to have this feeling
as long as possible,
the trust that time will stall
until she is finished,
that the world will pay attention,
that her imagination
matters.
Eventually she shows me her creation.
It is a play gym for Piggy,
her grubby stuffed pig.
It is made of yarn and cardboard
and a lot of tape.
It is wobbly and the slide has already come loose,
but her face is confident
in the way the ocean is confident,
which is to say
it doesn’t yet know
any other way to be.