Margaret Dornaus

Defining Moment: March 24, After the Ides, Post-Solstice, the Lenten Season . . .

The day my mother turned 48, she suddenly appeared before my fourth-grade class – her signature red hair and violet eyes flashing like neon – to hand out homemade cupcakes from a silver tray. I was nine, but instantly I felt older, wiser, more admired, more cherished. So when you asked me to pick a day – that morning, when I’d grown impatient with you for dancing around a date we might call our own; that morning when I’d taken off the ring you gave me and tried to thrust it back into your hand; that day when you told me to put the damn thing back on and never take it off again – my reply was emphatic. She used to give me her birthday, I told you. We could share it.

full circle
wearing your wedding band
on my right finger