She cartwheels through the living room like gravity forgot her, a streak of joy in pajamas,
hair a comet’s tail. One, two, three flips and spins, tiny feet slapping carpet like a heartbeat.
I sit on the couch, pretending I don’t see, pretending I’m not the audience to this private circus. But she knows. She knows I’m watching, waiting for her to soar again.
Then she pauses, hands meet hands in the air. A heart, and she points to me. “I love you,” her fingers say, without saying a thing.
I grin, make my own clumsy heart, fumble through the motions like an old magician with a new trick. I point back. Two fingers. “I love you, too.”
She laughs, the sound like windchimes in the summer breeze, and just like that, the show is over. She blows me a kiss goodnight, disappearing up the stairs, a tiny tornado in the making.
But in that brief moment, as she stood there smiling, I saw it. The young woman she’ll soon become. Cartwheeling through life with the same wild grace, the same laugh that lights up the room.
I hope I’m around to see her make it there, to watch her flip and twirl through the world. But if I’m not, if time doesn’t allow, I’ll hold onto these moments, these glimpses of tomorrow wrapped in the joy of today.
Because tonight, I got to witness the future, and it is beautiful.