when you were younger, I was your best invisible friend, your bedtime bodyguard, tear-stained confidant. Most evenings, after dinner with you seated on my lap, I brushed and sometimes braided your hair while you sat on the floor, book in hand and imagination far away in time or distance.

Neither of us has outgrown or tired of who, what, we are together. I don’t feel threatened by your husband, and he’s happily accepted me as part of you. We’ve all aged. My paws are stiff, your eyes weaker. Your husband, bless him, brushes your hair each night, reads to both of us from books for and about all ages. When you ask, he obliges and massages my digits.

I will go to my grave swearing he hears me say thank you.

(after an undated and untitled sketch of a bear-like animal braiding a young girl’s hair, by Barbara Baldi