Please Don’t Take Me Home

The car was blue and the sun was hot.  Everything seemed a little fuzzy – Hazy.

I was sitting in the front seat.  I could barely see over the dashboard and out the window.  I couldn’t have been more than 3, maybe 4?

Nonna was driving and we were going somewhere.  I didn’t know where.  I remembered that Nonna always kept chocolate bars in the glove box… just for me.  I was excited and I reached far, far over my lap to open the little box and see what was inside.  It was there!  A chocolate bar just for me!  I was so excited.

I fiddled with the wrapper – tried to open it myself.  I was distracted for a while.  I looked up – I don’t know why.  I probably wanted to ask Nonna to open the chocolate bar for me.  But my excitement faded instantly.  Out the window I could see the Food-for-Less – the one close to home.  We were going home.  Nonna was taking me home.

Fear, trepidation, anxiety – all replacing the excitement that coursed through my tiny body only moments before.  I didn’t want to go home.

“Nonna!  Don’t take me home!  Let’s go back to you house!  I want to stay at your house forever!”

“It’s okay, Love.  You have to go home.  Mommy and Daddy will miss you if you don’t go home.  I wish you could stay with me too.”

“Mommy is mean.  Daddy is mean.  Don’t take me home.”

Big tears running down my little cheeks.

A little girl of 3 or 4… begging to not go home to her parents…. my earliest memory.

Written in response to the Daily Prompt