Harmless by Jenna Kowaleski
There was a man sleeping in my son’s snow fort.
He had to have snuggled in for the night sometime after 10, when I’d let the dog out. Otherwise, she would have outed him.
Do I let him sleep? I wondered as I stared down at him from our second story window. He wasn’t doing any harm.
Was he doing any harm?
There was something violating about having this uninvited stranger on our property. A grown man in my son’s space. Only yesterday the snowy walls were protecting my little boy from imaginary dragons and bears and sharks. But the man had made the walls real, protecting him from the veracious wind. The transformation had taken the innocence out of the space.
But maybe there isn’t enough room in the world for innocence anymore.
At least, not for this other woman’s son. Curled up under a worn blanket, I saw the little boy he’d been. The little boy I tucked in every night. The little boy I prayed would be protected from what the world could be.
What have we done to him? An intrusive thought.
Should I bring him something to eat? I next wondered, still staring. Something ugly inside of me flinched at the thought that then he’d return, and I’d be on the line for another mouth to feed. Just last Wednesday I seriously thought about getting rid of the dog because we can’t afford it all anymore: the house, the kids, the car…and the dog. And what if this man comes back another day for another sandwich? And then another?
I could feel the delicate scale of my house’s finances tipping. Rationally, I reminded myself that this wouldn’t be the thing that would bring it all down. Still, I was starting to feel how tenuous the line was between us. I become afraid of him.
I stared at a version of my world where it all came crumbling down: the bank took back our 25-year-old roof, our wooden walls collapsed like Jenga pieces, the pink insolation melted into nothing but chunks of snow.
Instinctively, I wanted to throw myself over my son.
I suddenly wanted to protect this man so badly it hurt.
If I was a better person, maybe that would have been enough to compel me to do something for him. Still, I was still. And I wanted him gone.
He had to leave. Before my son got up. Before he saw a man sleeping in his snow fort and I’d have to acknowledge the poverty and desperation I’d worked so hard to keep out of his world.
I went downstairs and flipped on the porch light.
I took a shower. I got ready for work. Finally awake, I made extra eggs and toast. But the man had disappeared into the dawn. Like he’d never been there.
Harmless.
All the harm had been done.
Judges’ Comments:
In fewer than 500 words, the author takes us through the “north of normal” thoughts – kind to questioning to fearful – on an increasingly normal happenstance in an empathetic, wrenching way.
Lake Superior Writers 