busted

Yesterday I was going through the stack of papery junk that always accumulates a mile high. Mixed in were piles of M's papers from school. The school likes to send home any paper M touches, whether it was to draw a single shaky blue line across a 16" piece of paper or glue a piece of trash 1" in width to a gigantic blue posterboard. I know you know what I mean.

So I sorted out the actual "art" from the "crap" and feeling slightly bad I tossed the crap. This morning M goes to throw something away and screams MAMA SOMEONE THREW MY ARTWORK IN THE TRASH! IN THE TRASH! and starts crying.

Well, fuck.

So I run into the kitchen and peer inside, last nights dinner congealing on the papers. She reaches in and starts pulling them out. Mama, this is my artwork. It's NOT TRASH.

I help her pull the endless papers and we stack them on the table. It's my art!, she says again. I know baby, and I'm sorry. That should not have gone in the trash. (In the kitchen trash, you stupid woman, the OUTSIDE TRASH would have been better) I think silently.

I bet daddy did it! she says and opportunity for absolution briefly rises. I ponder that route, briefly weigh the benefits, and decide I have to suck it up. No baby, it was me. I did that.

YOU?! (her tone is incredulous and I feel the weight of a million therapy sessions in the balance) You threw away my artwork? Yes love, but I'm sorry.

It's not trash, mama. Don't do that again. Hands covered in coffee grounds.

And I walk by the bathroom and J says thanks for not selling me down the river on that one.
I should have put it in the outside trash, I reply.

Exactly, he says. Exactly.