all. Dottie walks over to the paper I have laid out for her on the floor. I am already dreading the mess she will make. For a moment, we are painting in tandem. She is appeased, if only temporarily, and I am doing it all: working, mothering, living. What should be a wash of satisfaction followed by a surge of happiness is replaced by a need for more. Better. Why can’t the momentary bliss satisfy me? Like the last flame before it transforms to an ember, I can only exist in the waiting—the space that knows the flicker will die out.
