Rescuing Julia Twice by Tina Traster Page A

comfort from another person. My mind drifts and I think about something that happened a few days ago in the playground.
    It was a dank, dull day like this one, but I was going stir-crazy in the apartment and couldn’t stand the thought of another trip down Broadway to Barnes & Noble. I bundled Julia into a snowsuit, and we set off to Riverside Park. This was both mine and Julia’s maiden voyage to a playground. I’d been to the Hudson River park countless times but never to the part with the swings and slides and jungle gyms. I don’t recall seeing a playground at the orphanage, and if there was one, Julia would have been too young to have seen it. I felt a mixture of hope and fear bubbling in my chest. I left the building and walked toward the river. At the entrance, I bumped the stroller down a set of massive stone steps and looked around. It was desolate. The sky was flat. I could see joggers in the distance against the backdrop of the roiling silver river and a few scattered homeless people piled under ragged woolen coats on benches, but Julia and I were the only souls on the playground. A chill coursed through me, but I resisted the urge to turn back. It wasn’t snowing orraining or terribly windy; what could be the harm of giving this a go? I parked the stroller at the base of the metal slide and wrestled Julia in her bulky snowsuit out of the belted contraption. I lifted her as high as I could midway up the slide and eased her down with a big, squeaky “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” She was agreeable, so I repeated this exercise a few times. Then I looked around thinking,
okay, what else?
    The climbing equipment looked too daunting for a baby, so I turned in the other direction where I noticed two hulking behemoths with long horns. “Look, Julia, din-o-saur. Look at the big din-o-saurs. Ooh, you can climb on those.” I trotted over to the beasts and propped her up on one of the creatures’ back. Then I pulled her along its sloping tail. She seemed pleased. On the third excursion I said aloud, “Dinosaurs are extinct. They don’t live on earth anymore. But they used to.” She looked at me blankly. I suppose any baby would. There are times when you hear yourself talking and it catches you by surprise. I have just told my child that dinosaurs no longer live on earth. There’s no part of that idea she can absorb now, and yet it seemed like the right thing to say. I planted the idea like a seed, knowing one day it will have meaning. And then I thought,
Right! That’s what it takes.
Nurture doesn’t necessarily show its benefit right away, but if you keep planting seeds, they are bound to take root. Given enough time and experience, Julia will learn to trust. Napping won’t be scary. I won’t be a stranger.
    â€œOkay, let’s try the swings.”
    I carried her to the row of the little boxy swings. I hoisted her in one, with a moan because she’s heavy as a sack of potatoes, and threaded her little feet through the holes to let her legs dangle. I walked behind the idling swing and gave it a gentle puff of a push. With no warning, she released a blood-curdling scream. I ran back to the front of the swing, stopping it immediately, thinking I didn’t have her in the seat correctly. I looked around to figure out what was wrong, but nothing was obvious. I smelled her bottom. She was clean. She had the queerest look of terror on her face. I returned to the back of the swing, and again, gave it a wee nudge. This time she wailed even louder. I fumbled again to the front of the swing and wriggled her from the seat. “Okay, okay, no swing, noswing!” and in an instant, she was fine. She stopped crying; it was like nothing had ever happened, like a button had been turned off. But when I pulled her toward me to comfort her and tell her that I was sorry, she instinctively flexed her muscles to deflect me.
    I put her back into the stroller and trudged