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“Do you have wings?”
I look up from my phone to see a young girl, no older than eight, staring at me with big, brown eyes. Her wiry black hair is pulled back into a high ponytail with a pink scrunchie, and her pink graphic tee proclaims, “I’m a princess, end of story!”
“Excuse me?” I answer, because I have no idea how to talk to children.
“Do you have wings?” She repeats, assuming I just hadn’t heard her, before clarifying, “I thought angels usually had wings.”
I struggle internally for a moment with the fact this child’s question sounds like a terrible pickup line. Children are weird, I tell myself, and curiosity dictates my next question.
“What makes you think I’m an angel?”
“You’re wearing that pretty dress. You look like the angels in my Bible.”
I glance down and pinch at the loose fabric of my white dress. It looks like silk, but it isn’t, and feels like plastic, because it is.
“This? I, uh- I just bought it at Goodwill.”
“Oh,” she says, and her eyes drift to the ground, before excitedly darting back up as she grins wide. “Maybe an angel donated it!” The rubber bands on her braces are also pink.
“Ha, yeah,” and a smile flits across my lips. “Maybe.”
“That’s so cooooool!”
Then, a hand on her shoulder, slender fingers tipped with black nail polish.
“Mary! Don’t run away from me like that!”
The woman has the same wiry hair as her daughter, but it hangs around her face in a long bob. She’s panting, but tries to gain composure as she looks at me.
“Sorry about that - she’s a bit of a troublemaker,” Mary’s mother explains.
“Am not!” Mary counters.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” I raise my hands, as if to prove I’m not holding any undue burdens her daughter may have given me.
The woman doesn’t answer me, instead offering a tired smile. She gives Mary a small nudge, to steer the child along on their way.
“Come on, let’s go. I still need to deliver a letter at the post office.”
“Okayyy,” Mary capitulates. As they walk away, I hear her babbling in her bubbly voice, “Oh, oh, mommy, that lady was so nice! She bought her dress from an angel!”
Her mother chuckles. “An angel? That seems a bit unlikely.”
“Actually, she bought it at Goodwill. But! But, maybe an angel left it there!”
“Maybe,” her mother agrees and ruffles Mary’s hair.