Papa tells me Annie moved away for work.

  I say okay.

  I wait to feel sad and I don’t, really. I think about it for a few days and I figure out why. Annie was fun. She was really fun. But she was fun the way a birthday is fun. Not the way Tuesday is. Mama was Tuesday. Every single Tuesday, and Monday, and every other day, and I didn’t know that meant something until she was gone and the Tuesdays stopped working right.

  Annie was never going to be Mama.

  I don’t know where that thought came from. But I know it’s true.

  The house is quieter now. Papa goes to work. I go to school. Mrs. Cantor ties my hair back when it falls in my face during reading and her hand is warm and light and I stare at the page very hard and think about something else because if I don’t I’m going to cry at school and I really don’t want to cry at school.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Papa asks me at dinner if I miss Annie.

  “A little,” I say. That’s true. “Do you?”

  He looks at his fork. “A little.”

  I miss mama too.

  We eat.

  I think about the wish I made at my birthday. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I wished for Annie to be my mama instead and three days later Mama left and I know that’s not how wishes work, I know that, but.

  But what if it is how they work.

  What if I did that.

  I push the thought away. I eat my dinner. I drink my milk.

  I ask Papa at bedtime: “Is Mama ever coming back?”

  He’s quiet for too long.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does she know where we live?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she could come back if she wanted.”

  He pulls my blanket up. He kisses my head. He turns the light off without answering.

  I lie in the dark.

  She knows where we live. She just doesn’t come.

  I don’t understand that. I don’t understand how you know where someone lives and you don’t go there. If I knew where Mama was I would walk there. I would walk the whole way.

  Maybe she’s waiting for something. Maybe she’s waiting for me to tell her I’m sorry about the wish.

  I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean it. I want you to be my mama. I want you.

  I close my eyes and I say it to the ceiling the way Papa says things to the ceiling sometimes when he thinks I’m asleep.

  Come home. I take it back. I take the whole wish back.