After School

We pick up our granddaughter from school.
She is 13.

She asks us “How was your day?” And means it.
I know this because she looks at us when she asks.

Then she follows with “And what did you do today?”
And waits for our answers. We know now to be prepared. You can’t show up having done nothing.

She thinks it’s cold in the house so we turn up the heat.
I make her hot chocolate in a cup with a spoon and she puts the cup on a coaster on the table.

Then she finds her channel on the TV where she watches an unexplainable
game which she tries to explain. It is foreign to me and stays that way.

We leave her to walk the dogs. When we come back, she is sleeping, a blanket over her head and the unexplainable game still playing on the TV.

This is what we did today. One of the things, maybe the best thing.