i long to hold you until the sun goes down on your soul

[Cicada]

[Ivy Briar] Nooooo!

[Ingrid Briar] No! Heeheeahaha, that’s not right!

[Ingy Briar] Yeah! That’s me!

[Memory 1]

My name is Ingy and I am four and eight months years old. I and my family go to the big Target near our house sometimes.

When we go inside sometimes there’s one of the songs playing and it makes lights appear everywhere. There’s lots of greens and blues. The greens are like the trees in the forest. I’ve never seen those before. The greens are also like the bushes that are on the roads in the city. I see those everyday when I go to Kindergarten. They are less green than the other green. Kind of yellow. The blues are like the waves in the ocean. I haven’t seen the ocean before. The blues are also like the sky above where God lives. I see the sky everyday when I look at it. But I don’t see God. Mom says He’s up there if I look for Him though.

Nobody else sees the greens and blues besides me. They stare at me when I tell them about it. Their eyes get narrow and their smiles get big. Not at the same time. That means they don’t really get it. Maybe it is because I am special but no that is weird. I don’t want to be special, I just want to be Ingy.

When we go inside the big Target I ask Mom if I can try to grab the red baskets in the front. She says yes and then laughs because they are too big for me. But I get bigger every month! I check with the marker and the wall in my bedroom. Mom helps me and Dad does not help me. This month I am three feet and four inch. I can count that. One two three four.

I can also count higher. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve threeteen fourteen fiveteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one. I can also do the rest up to one-hundred. Also I know thirteen and fifteen are not threeteen and fiveteen! But it would make more sense if they were.

I tried to pick up the red basket today but it was still too big because I can’t grab it and I can’t grab the handle thing. I told Mom she was right and she could have a dollar from me. But I don’t have a dollar! I will give her one when I am older. She says not to worry about it. But it is not fair because she was right. I still can’t get the basket. I need to get bigger!

The music was playing the song by a guy. I asked Mom and she said the guy was named Whiz Cali-fah. Maybe it was short for Whiz California, whatever that meant. It was a fun song.

Black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow! It made the fuzzies in my eyes more of the forest color green and they were really big like the plate with paint flowers I use to eat dinner. They almost made the whole store dark like turning off the lights! Scary! I stared at them for a bit while Mom waited with me and Dad was looking at his phone a lot, looking at people walking by, looking at his phone, looking at people walking by.

The colors got less big after I stared at them and I was able to keep walking with Mom and Dad.

Near where the baskets were there is the shelf. There are other shelfs but this one is the one with a lot of dresses that are too big for me. I am not small! Adults are just very tall because they have been growing up since America was invented.

“Mom, look!”

I used to shout when I’m excited! Now I say it in a smaller way. Like a little bubble that I blow with my lips and it is just for Mom and maybe Dad if he’s paying attention but he usually is not.

“Mom let’s check today.”

I pointed at the shelf.

“Okay Ingy, we can take a look.” She smiled at me and I smiled back. Mom is the best. I don’t have money yet, not even a dollar, but someday I will buy her nice dresses and necklaces and cook her good food.

Mom lets me help with making the chicken and the plantains and the squashes sometimes. I can move the wooden flat-shaped spoon now but she moves it better. Mom lets me lick the spoon after. It smells good and tastes very spicy and is all drippy with brown and yellow and little flakes of spices and peppers.

When I went to the shelf it was always really stressful. Most of the dresses are really ugly. They should only put pretty dresses and not put the ugly ones.

I pick up each dress and look at it and if the color is too soft or too pale it is ugly. Mom should have strong colors because they make her look really beautiful and powerful in a crowd. Powerful! Like I will be someday after I grow bigger after I am as old as God is.

Also the dresses have to be nice and small on the top. Mom has a shape with small shoulders and she is really graceful like a butterfly. The dress should be smaller on the top. If it doesn’t do that it is ugly!

I picked up the dress one. It was a pink that was mostly white and it had a white collar. Ugly! I folded it like Mom folds laundry because she folds good. I fold it kind of like the folding on the shelf. I don’t need to be perfect, I just need to be good and try my best. I put the dress back. I picked up the dress two. It was really long when I unfolded it and I yelped because I was surprised it covered most of me like hiding under my blankets. Haheehee, it was funny! And it was really wrinkly. It was green, a different green from the ones the Target songs make me see. Green like the water in the fish tank in my best friend Jennifer’s living room. There is no fish in that fish tank which is weird.

Anyways this dress two was too big and it would cover up all of Mom’s legs, and Mom has nice legs. The dress is ugly!

I folded the dress two and put the dress back. It was difficult because of how long it was and my arms got kind of tired, but Mom saw me and helped me out because she’s the best.

There was a tall white lady who came to the shelf too. Taller than adults who are always very tall. We saw each other and we both smiled at the same time! Sometimes adults don’t smile at me and I don’t understand why.

“Your daughter is so adorable!”

“My name is Ingy!” I pointed at the dress she picked up. It was a gray that was really light and the fabric looked soft and squishy. It would show the legs nice because it was short after it went in and back out for the waist. But the gray was too light and it was like the little clouds on a sunny day.

“Miss that one is ugly.”

The adults laughed. The tall white lady had a sharper hahaha than Mom and it made my ears feel scrunchy. I didn’t know why they were laughing and it stressed me out. After a while they stopped laughing and I felt a bit better because the tall white lady and Mom were both paying attention to me.

“It’s ugly?” The tall white lady asked and her voice sounded higher like pressing a piano at the right and not the left. She knelt down so she wasn’t so tall for a moment. She looked at me right in the eyes. “Why do you think so, Ingy?”

“What is your name Miss?” I thought I should know her name. I asked with a really big smile because that is nice to do.

“Alison. It’s really nice to meet you, Ingy.” She held out her hand. Like adults do I put my hand in her hand and squeezed and moved it around. Shaking hands, but I thought that was calling it wrong because there wasn’t enough shaking shaking like how Mom shakes the milk all over before pouring it for my cereal in the morning. Miss Alison had very big hands and her fingers closed over mine and it was warm.

“Hi Miss Alison. The dress is ugly because it is very light. That’s sad. It should be more of happy colors. Like green like trees or orange like oranges. Like Mom wears and she’s the prettiest.” Orange was my favorite color ever. I thought it tasted delicious whenever I saw it.

Miss Alison looked up at my Mom. They nodded at each other. Then Miss Alison looked straight at me.

“That’s a good point, Ingy. Would you like to help me pick a dress?”

I nodded a lot and I was excited! It made me feel good when adults trusted me because it meant I was getting smarter. I hoped when I went to elementary school that I would learn stuff like math and how to make more friends. That would make me more grown up like Mom, who has a lot of friends, or Dad, who can do math. Math sounds really hard to do.

I held on to Miss Alison’s hand and she followed me back to the shelf. We looked through the shelf. The dress three was yellow with white circles all over it. It was happy and bright but it was the wrong color for Miss Alison because she was already kind of bright. She needed a different happy.

The dress four was really pretty! It was a very purple purple like the big purple guy at the Donalds in the houses that we drove to sometimes so I could get chicken nuggets and sliced apples. The dress four was big on the top and bottom and that would fit Miss Alison really well because she had a big chest and shoulder.

I looked at the other dresses, there were seven other ones folded, but they were all ugly. I made sure to fold them also. I was getting kind of tired but Mom and Miss Alison helped out.

Then I got dress four again because it was the best one for Miss Alison. I showed her.

“This one, Miss Alison.”

“Oh my, Ingy, that is gorgeous.” She took the dress four and put it in front of her, close to her so she could see herself in it. I thought she looked really pretty. Mom agreed. “I think I’ll get this one.”

Yay! I did it! I looked at Mom and she smiled. I looked at Miss Alison and she also smiled.

“Miss Alison, what do we say?” Mom and Miss Alison laughed more. I laughed too because laughing was fun. I didn’t know why the adults laughed.

“Thank you very much, Ingy. I love it.” She folded the dress and didn’t put it on the shelf. She put it in her red basket, which meant she was going to buy it!

“Thank you for saying thank you!” That was kind of silly sounding. I smiled big because I was really happy. But it was also important to say the other thing.

“Hey Miss Alison. You can buy whatever you want. I think it’s better to buy stuffs that's pretty, not ugly. But we don’t have to think the same things are pretty.” That was really important. I used to think only things that were pretty should be bought. That was when I was three years old which had happened forever ago. But I was bigger now and more grown up. Sometimes I see people bought ugly things and smiled and laughed and put them in their red baskets. I didn’t understand why! But it was great if they were happy, even if the thing they bought was really ugly.

Miss Alison looked at Mom with big and happy eyes.

“She’s a wonderful girl! Miss?”

“Sheila.” Mom’s name was Mom! Sheila was just the name she gave to adults, but I would not use that name because I am not an adult.

They did the hand in hand thing where they shaked them small.

“Maybe you should get one as well? I think you would also look lovely in it.”

Oh! That was right! Miss Alison was smart. I looked up at Mom as well.

“Mom! It's also a nice color for you! But you should get a smaller purple one. This one has too much boobs for you.”

The adults laughed more. That stressed me out. I was correct! Mom would be ugly if the dress was too big on the top! I stood there and felt mad, and it showed because Mom smiled at me the same way she does when she wants to make me feel better but she doesn’t say anything. I calmed down a bit. I can’t stay mad at Mom because she’s the best.

“Ingy, I loved meeting you.”

“I loved meeting you too Miss Alison.” I looked back at her and made a biiiig heart with my two hands, holding it up for her to know how much I loved her. It wasn’t the biggest heart it could be because I had tiny hands. Miss Alison smiled so big, with her lips and with the lights in her eyes. She was really pretty. But she’d be even more pretty with her new dress four. She started to walk away, still looking at me for a bit. Adults are really busy all the time, so I understand she had to go other places to put more important things in her red basket like cereal for her kids. I wondered if her kids were as tall as me yet.

I waved until she wasn’t looking anymore. I looked back at Mom. She was holding dress four in her hands, staring at the paper part that has numbers on it, but big numbers I do not know how to count to.

“Ingy, we can’t afford this.”

That made me sad. I sometimes wondered why we needed money to buy things like dresses for looking pretty and spices and chicken for soup and cereal for breakfast.

“I can give you money. When I'm older.”

Mom nodded, holding out her hand to me. Her hand was also really big and my hand felt safe now. I was still a bit sad. Mom would have looked really pretty in dress four. But maybe when I got taller and started making money we could come back. But the dresses usually changed every few months. I had to eat lots so I could get taller faster. I like cereal in the morning and all the food Mom cooks! I will definitely eat more.

Mom nodded and said nothing else, still smiling at me. But she looked a bit sad too, when I said that I would give her money someday. I wasn’t sure why.

Wait.

“Moooom! Dad’s running away again!”

I started running after him. It was hard to catch up because I’m not adult sized. Dad moves fast when he’s on his phone and forgets me and Mom exists. But he always apologizes afterwards.