in my dream last night, i had a job in an office, i think it was at my mom's school, where she teaches. and i had to work late one night, and misha was also working, and while julian was ok with watching astrid til i got home, astrid was pissed that she was going to miss her evening theatre class. after much finagling, and talking it over with misha, we agreed that she could take the bus there by herself and then afterwards take it to my office, and we would go home together. i was under the impression that it was in our neighbourhood when i agreed to this and astrid kept insisting that she knew the way because daddy had brought her on the bus several times before that.

however, when it got dark outside, and the office clock said 5:00pm and it was time for me to go and she still wasn't at the office, i started to panic. i called misha and asked him exactly where the class was and to my surprise he told me it was in richmond (which involves riding the skytrain and TWO buses from our place). totally freaking out, i wandered from cubicle to cubicle telling people what was wrong and they either scoffed at me or acted uncomfortable or ignored me. i felt frantic. i kept saying, "i didn't even give her a cell phone so she could call me. i just let her go out there by herself. i'm a total idiot. should i phone the police or wait a while?"

then mom wandered in and i told her what had happened. she immediately told me to call the police. i was standing at the top of a stairway and there was a wall-mounted phone right there. mom was on the top step holding on to the handrail. i picked up the phone and started to dial when i heard the office door down below open and astrid was there, crying. my mom turned around and ran down the stairs and i hung up the phone and tried to follow. astrid was saying, "i hurt my knee, i hurt my knee, i want mommy," and my mom was clutching her and carrying her up the stairs saying, "don't worry, baby, we'll get you all cleaned up, it's ok, you're ok," and a bunch of people were crowding around and i had to shove my way past them all.

mom had astrid in a bathroom and was filling up a bathtub with hot water and undressing her. astrid was crying and holding her knee. i started crying in relief to see her and her little scraped knee and was about to embrace her when one of the other women said, "stop. stop touching her, stop cleaning her up. the police will want her to go to the hospital." she said it in this very weird, calm voice. i looked at her and then i looked back at astrid who was now stripped down completely and saw that it wasn't just her knee. her vulva was bruised and swollen and red and there was blood all over her. she was still rocking back and forth saying, "i was running and i fell and hurt my knee, mommy."

my mom realized what had happened at the same moment i did, and kind of doubled over and said, "oh god, oh god, oh astrid, oh god." i put my hand on mom's back and tried to reason with her to keep her head, to not let astrid see how upset we were because she'd clearly already been through too much and we had to be strong instead. but seeing my mom fall apart like that, and seeing my daughter all pale and shaken and clearly in shock and understanding what must have happened and knowing it was my fault for letting her go out on her own like that, well....i closed my eyes and tilted my head up to the ceiling and howled in anguish.