Her heart stopped for a second when she felt nothing on her hair. Maybe it got stuck in the hood. No. She panicked and told her aunt that she couldn't find her little head band. Her aunt looked disconcerted too and looked in her little hood to make sure. Yup, it's not there.
It was cold, and they had been walking very briskly to reach the eatery for some quick dinner with a friend. But she didn't care about the cold. She turned around immediately and started to trace their path. Her aunt said they could do that later. Her helplessness took a step up when her refusal to comply was met with the cold hand of her aunt who wanted to go somewhere warm and eat. The little girl's priorities were not the same as the two adults', but their priorities were more important.
She started talking about where it could have been. In the car? If not, where did she drop it? Her speech started slurring as her mind walked through complex thoughts, not only of possible clues to where the pink head band was, but, much more importantly the punishment awaiting her for having lost it. She didn't care so much about the head band, of course, but rather the fury that awaited her at home when her grandmother learns that she had lost it, as she had lost so many things already.
Her aunt tried to be understanding while being realistic. She tried telling her what they would do to look for it afterwards. She asked her where she had seen it. But she also reproached her for losing it. She was nervous, too, it seemed, about the impending explosion upon returning home. But the little girl didn't notice or care about her aunt's sympathies or worries. She was very much afraid.
For a moment, she forgot about the incident when her aunt started talking to her about other things. And then when the eatery was packed, she suggested going to another place. Their friend was impressed that she, a little nine year old, knew something about restaurants in her city. Adults are always so impressed by children's adult-like behaviors. And while her aunt continued talking to her about various things, she was smiling again and talking non-stop. They arrived in the newly chosen eatery. It was packed too, but not so much. It only took a minute before a table was freed up. They sat down and a minute later a waiter came and cleaned up the food. The little girl already started playing with a sauce bottle that had her favorite, avocado sauce. The place was made of two sections. One had a lot of families sitting together, packaged always with wandering children, the other, where they were, were tables of young men and women, each gender segregated into tables, with the young men taking peeks at the women tables every now and then. All were very joyous and merry, and very gregarious and loud. And in this noisy environment, while her aunt and the friend spoke about other things, the little girl put her sauce bottle away and buried her head in her arms resting on the table. That immediately got the adults' attention. Simple tricks that always work. She was worried again. The punishment itself often seemed actually less horrific than the anticipation and dread of the punishment.
"Haven't I been punished enough just by worrying?" she would ask later, wondering if the real punishment could be revoked.
Asked if she was worried, she said nothing. She was just happy that her fear and anxieties were not her only companions at that table.
But as with everything for a child, the episode of attention grabbing and worrying quickly disappeared and she was eating and making jokes and laughing again. She drank her apple juice and even ate a big share of the food, which she liked a lot more than whatever she was forced to eat at home for her own good, supposedly.
But then the dinner would eventually end. And the reality would return. Her smile disappeared before they stepped out into the street. And the futile search in retracing their path started. The head band's pink color would have stood out very clearly in the black gray cobblestones of the old town. There weren't many people, and they inspected cursorily the huge numbers of garbage cans. It's strange how you don't notice there are so many garbage cans in the street until you are looking for them. Her heart beat faster and her silence lasted all the way till the car, where it was clear that the headband was lost if it was in the streets. There was little chance it was in the car. She didn't bother to look in the car; she thought of one last thing. She was hanging out in front of a jewelry store on their way to the eatery while waiting for her aunt who was talking to an old professor of hers. She was just being a kid, playing with different ornaments outside the jewelry store. It must be there. But they didn't pass by any jewelry store, or if they did, it was closed and they didn't notice it.
The backseat of the car was inspected and nothing came up, nothing red, of any kind. She pinned her hopes on the jewelry store but her aunt didn't think there was any hope in that, believing instead that she simply wasn't mindful of her belongings and dropped it without paying attention. She was the adult so the little girl had to listen to her, trust her opinion, even in the face of a punishment.
The friend asked what sort of punishment was it. It was going to be a lot of yelling, but nothing more. Still, it was the stentorian disappointment that she was dreading. Her grandmother took care of her all the time, paid her the most attention, often more than she really wanted, though probably what she needed. And every time she got upset with her, she found the pain increasingly unbearable. And she has started blaming herself for being irresponsible too, which was what her aunt was telling her was the lesson she needed to learn.
But she was confused. She couldn't understand the connection between the wrath of someone she cared so much about and her own shortcomings as a child. And it wasn't just anyone, but rather someone who replaced her mother whose irresponsibility in motherhood she was too young to understand. In the car, she just wanted to dig a hole and crawl in there and sleep until the bad storm is over, that she wouldn't have to bear it and that when she woke up her grandmother would be nice to her just as before she crawled in the hole.
In her desperation she suggested perhaps they could trick her grandmother, lie to her. Her aunt gave her a lecture on the evils of lies. Then she suggested just spending her own money to buy a new one. Her aunt reminded her the importance of this punishment to teach her a lesson in personal responsibility. She ran out of ideas. And as the car got closer to the house, she just crawled into a ball and pretended that she was already in the hole of safety.
But she wasn't in the hole and they coaxed her to sit back up and come out of the car. It was a fine fun day by the sea until the last moment in the cold downtown of the old city. She wasn't sure how the news would be broken to her grandmother. She didn't completely trust the two adults with her, but then she herself would not tell her grandmother. With a drooping head she put her stuff away and went up to her room. For the first time she wished the storm would come now and get it over with. And so she waited in the room.
Life is full of distractions. No sooner than she sit down on her bed and the first tear started flowing and being wiped away by her defiant hands, she heard the dog downstairs barking, and she heard her grandmother talking silly things to her favorite pet. And by the time the little girl got downstairs, her eyes were all dry and her hands were petting the little dog too. Her grandmother didn't notice that she didn't come to say "hi" as soon as she came in and simply asked her to get ready to have some more food, which she normally would protest but this time, she was glad to take some.
She wasn't ready to assume the responsibility of losing a that paltry item yet. She just wanted to be happy and have fun. And for now, for this night, she would have a bit more fun. Soon her grandmother would discover the loss, soon she would get infuriated, and like the previous episodes, there would be drama and heartaches, and also growth, for better or for worse, but for now, the little girl, not conscious of whatever lessons or patterns there are in life, just wanted to tell her grandmother about the little dogs she spotted during the day by the sea.
