A mess of curls peeks out from under the bed. Abby looks behind the door, behind the dresser, in the closet. A tiny, disembodied giggle sounds off from the other side of the room. She looks around the room dramatically and says, “I wonder where January is…” complete with a hand to her head scratching at her mess of curls.

She sits on the bed in apparent defeat, her left foot hanging off the edge as she plops down. This was a game mother and daughter frequently played, and while it wasn’t novel for Abby, it seemed like brand new fun for January each and every time. The seven year old’s pointer finger slowly pokes out from under the bed and it makes its way to Abby’s big toe. *Tickle, tickle* Abby wiggles her toes as if she doesn’t realize the culprit. *Tickle, tickle* Another tiny giggle muffled by the layers of bedframe, mattress fluff, blankets, and mother’s body eeks out from the floor as the arch of her foot is now accosted. Her entire foot circles this time as Abby slowly leans over to get a glimpse of the little mischievous face in hiding. Good girl, Abby thought, you actually stayed mostly hidden this time. Almost as if on cue, the head of curls starts to wiggle and shift and the little girl suddenly pops her head out from hiding. “Surprise, Mommy, it was me!” the little girls laughs as she drags herself out from under the bed and into her mother’s lap. “You got me!” Abby shouts as she tickles the girl, January writhing and wriggling in excruciating glee.

It seemed like every other day or so, the girl would want to play this game of hide-and-seek, and she would always inevitably hide under the bed. As long as mom played along, daughter would repeat the pattern, and both would wind up in high spirits. Her mother thought she was a little too old for such a simple game but humored her in fear this would be one of those things she missed during the difficult teenage years when her daughter didn’t even want to be around her anymore let alone play games and laugh with her. And so it would go on, mother would hide in fairly obvious places (maybe a more challenging place every now and then to keep the little girl on her toes), daughter would find her, and back and forth a few times until eventually daughter would hide under the bed and do something to give up her own hiding spot, usually resorting to tickling her mother’s feet.

It wasn’t always hide-and-seek when the girl would use this hiding place. It could be simple games of hiding from her father when he attempted to assign household chores, mom would let the girl hideout while the rest of the family started in, eventually forcing her out to share in the labor. It was also a place of refuge when she felt sad or scared. Even just reading, playing or sitting quietly by herself she would sometimes choose this hiding place over her own room. Her mother thought this odd since it wasn’t under her own bed, but her parents’, but as long as she knew where to find her after giving her a healthy amount of time alone, she didn’t mind too much. It was just one of those feelings she got, that something wasn’t right when she knew that everything was as right as it always had been and would likely always be.

Ordinary. Everything about Abby’s life was ordinary. And expected. And by the book. She had the marriage to her high school sweetheart, James, who was perfectly sweet and responsible as she always wanted her husband to be. The house with the white picket fence--it wasn’t white, but still, it was a quaint house with a low-maintenance, but still idealic fenced yard. She even had the son and the daughter, in that order, almost exactly two years apart. Everything was as it “should” be and nothing was as it shouldn’t. There was nothing out of place and very little that could go awry without her quickly noticing and setting it right again. She loved her life exactly as it was and had a sense of control over her life few people ever experience. Still, every once in a while, there would be a moment with her kids when she’d feel uneasy, like something was going to go wrong. She could never place the feeling because, by all accounts, everything was as it should be. Yet, there was the feeling of not having as much control over their safety as she’d hope. But isn’t that what parenthood is? A series of being confused, elated, let down, ecstatic, wounded, and all other ways of being amazingly up and then beat up by parenthood. So she let the fleeting feelings of failure go, and kept up with her perfectly ordinary life.