Ask Again, Yes

by Mary Beth Keane

“The thing is, Peter, grown-ups don’t know what they’re doing any better than kids do. That’s the truth.”

Used to be he’d come home from work and shout at everyone to pick up their markers, their papers, their sweatshirts, their backpacks, and then one day he’d looked around and there were no backpacks thrown anywhere.

“We repeat what we don’t repair,”

But things are meant to change, Peter said. Because life changes and people change. As long as we change together, we’re okay.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, he knew. It was that she loved him so much that it frightened her, loved him so much that she worried she might have to protect herself from it. He tried to let her know that he’d figured that out, finally, that there was no need to explain, but then he realized that she might not know it herself.