we all live in a yellow submarine

She ruined the hike, there are no two ways about it. She started complaining almost immediately, and we cajole and then talk sternly and there is nothing, not a thing that will change her mind. We are a few miles out and it's getting worse and she's been carried almost the whole way. I feel it, the shit's going to hit the fan.

J loses it first. That's it, he says. We aren't going to the show later. A plan we'd had all week for today, a hike and then later, a show. I turn to him, silent and glaring. I really wanted to have the day we planned. M starts to wail, big fat tears in the middle of nature, she's drowning out the birds and we've got nowhere to run. J puts her on his shoulders, steam rising from his ears. We start to argue. It's all my fault and it's all his fault and it's all her fault and we fall silent, the hike is ruined. I feel the tears welling up, senseless tears and yet they are there anyways. I really wanted to have the day we planned but what's done is done. I am also twelve years old.

The drive home is long and silent and when we get home we go to three corners, M plays quietly because no one feels like entertaining her. I am lying on the couch thirty minutes later when she walks up to me and holds out a tower of legos. Mama, I made you a lighthouse. I didn't even know she knew that word. We embrace and talk a bit about how frustrated I felt and how lame that hike was because of how she acted. I hear J stir in the other room, he comes around the corner. Maybe we can still go, if we talk about it maybe we can still go. He's caving now and he knows it and I know it and there are costs to the caving and yet I am happy to join him. We three sit on the floor together, we each say what we need to and we hope it sinks in. I look at J. It's this, I say. This is what a family means, it means we find our way back to center each and every time. He looks at me and smiles. M, he says, this is our first time as parents, we don't always know what we are doing and we are trying really hard to do the right thing. But it's all of us together who needs to be a team. She throws her arms around us and goes running through the house. You guys gave up! And we look at each other over her head what are you going to say to that he says and I don't know but I am laughing, because in a way she's right and in a way she's wrong and we go to the show just the same.

And later we sit in the darkened theater, the three of us in a row and I watch her face, enthralled at the screen and she looks absolutely beautiful. I look up and I see J looking at her too. Our eyes meet over her head and we smile. It's this, I say again, out loud and to myself. It's this.