I told her not to leave the beach ball outside.
It wasn't that windy, not what you'd call windy at all, but the beach ball is taller than she is, too big to fit in the backseat of a car, so big it must be shoved to fit through a standard door frame. It is magnificent.
She left it outside.
Minutes before guests arrived, I noticed its absence. I kept looking behind the sailboat, hoping it was just shoved in the corner of the garage somewhere, hidden. My heart sank, because I knew that beach ball is to gargantuan to hide anywhere.
"Walk down the hill and see if it rolled down," said Beloved. I took her hand, and we followed the curve of the sidewalk down the hill to the creek.
"This is where it would probably be if it rolled this way," I said, sighing and trudging back up the hill, starting to sweat in the August heat.
At this point I was only annoyed.
I hiked into all the neighbors' backyards as Beloved and the little angel went down the hill again, this time following it all the way around the curve. As they crested the hill on their return, I heard her sobs. She had realized it might really be gone, this beach ball of which she was so proud. The beach ball that entertained her and the neighbor kids on summer nights, the one you couldn't find in stores anywhere because it was so huge.
Suddenly finding that beach ball seemed very, very important.
I stood very still, trying to determine which way the wind was blowing. You'd think someone who likes to go sailing would be better at this, but there was only the faintest hint of a breeze. Still, I suspected it was enough to make that huge kite of a beach ball move.
Four houses down in the other direction, up the hill, I ran into some neighbors.
"This is going to sound strange, but I'm looking for an enormous rainbow beach ball," I began.
"Oh, yeah, I just saw it a few minutes ago," said the man. "I tried to chase it, but it was walking faster than I could. Up a hill even. It headed down the street and turned right at the cul-de-sac."
I stared, dumbfounded.
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"Yeah! I would've run, but I just got back from the Ozarks, and I'm tired."
I started to trot, wondering how the hell the ball could take a right at a cul-de-sac. The street slanted down toward the lake at this point, and I pictured the little angel's beach ball floating away and picked up my pace.
And then I saw it, sitting in the middle of a yard surrounded with an electric fence and containing two barking dogs. The ball was inside their fence. I hesitated.
Then the guy who'd gone to the Ozarks appeared, apparently now engaged in this mini drama unfolding on a Sunday afternoon. He swooped into the yard, unfazed by the barking dogs and grabbed the ball. I was so excited, really way too excited, but I couldn't wait to show my sobbing daughter her beach ball.
I thanked the man and walked back toward home carrying the ball. Beloved pulled up behind me in the car, and we both realized we'd run off in different directions thinking the other was with the little angel. She'd just been left home alone for the first time in her life.
I started to walk faster, panicking that she would've gone off on her own, looking for her ball or running from room to room wondering where her parents had gone. I pictured calling the police, going door to door looking for my girl, cursing myself for worrying about the stupid ball if now my daughter was going to be lost. It did not occur to me that she is six years old, not two, and has only been home alone for all of ten minutes.
When I hit the driveway, her smiling face appeared in the glass door. I held the ball out to her, and she ran to take it. "Thank you, Mommy," she said.
And I felt like the hero.
