The Sound of Gravel

by Ruth Wariner

As I pulled the covers up and let Micah settle in next to me, I heard Mom’s voice in my ears: Children need to get used to being in the dark. She’d repeated that countless times throughout my childhood. No, I thought, they don’t.

I cried too, but only much later, when I realized how little she had asked of the world, and how even that had been too much for the world to give.