STOW AWAY.

I'm trying to think of whether or not you took your things with you this morning; packed them all up in a hurry, scuttled them off to the car before I had a chance to see that luggage hit the trunk. Stowed away.
But you didn't, so far as I know. You left with me this morning, holding hands and laughing, packed with only your schoolbag and the sandwich I gave to you, gingerly wrapped in tinfoil and a plastic baggy, so fearful was I that you'd go hungry. My motherly side is coming out, despite everything. Despite knowing better, having been told better, despite bad experiences and knowing full well that men despise nags, despise the coddling caring handholding of the female species. But I find that I cannot help myself. I want to protect you, nurture you like a child, an overgrown child, huge actually, dressed in that sweater with the short arm sleeves, your naked wrists poking out of everything. I want to keep you under the bell jar with me, where its warm and the wind can't get you and irritate those delicate lungs and where all of your needs are met because: there I am. And what else could you need?