Although the moon is a day or two on the wane, it still fills the living room with light. I take one final look at the moon and hills beyond from out of our big picture window then turn to head back to my room. I’m not quite ready for sleep, yet I’m a bit too weary to read. I’m kind of in between. So is Elihu. It’s way past ten and he can’t sleep. I hear the music box going – one he recently discovered in my dresser drawer. I told him I had gone to sleep by it when I was his age, and he asked if he could have it in his room. Hearing the melody sends me back to a strange haunting of a feeling – a half-dream of a time that seems from some different life altogether. I’m happy to know he is listening to the same tune that I did when I was little. He may not be so very little anymore, but he’s still little enough. To call me Mommy, to climb in my lap, to find a music box the right sort of comfort to help him to sleep.
I hear the melody for a second time. And a third, a fourth. I think I’ll get into bed now. Oh I hope the little music box will work for us tonite. The melody teeters on the edge of it’s final unwinding and – it stops. Good. That’s all for now. See you in the morning.
The Hillhouse 