Fifty-Two

I exhaled heavily, feeling the sweat trickling down the sides of my face and dampening the underarms of my sleeveless T-shirt. My muscles ached, protesting from the back-and-forth run around Luciano's house, and I came to an abrupt stop in front of a neatly trimmed hedge. From a distance, I observed a father holding his little daughter's hand, their destination unknown. The ends of the girl's pink ballerina dress twirled around her tiny legs. Suddenly, she paused, tilting her right foot to the side. The father crouched down to address the issue, fixing her loosened shoelace. The scene stirred memories of my own childhood when my father used to drop me off and pick me up from school.

He would linger a while longer after I got out of the car, watching as I bounced down to the school gate before driving away. Just as I disappeared into the thin line of the crowd, he would wave, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I wrestled with my emotions, finally tearing my gaze away from the little gi