Where She Left It

Where She Left It

On the side of the highway, abandoned where the wild grass ends, a child’s shoe— blue, with a slight heel, broken on the left side, rhinestone anklet torn from its support— the victim of a wobbly learning step, its twin nowhere near.

I circled it in reverence, looking for some sort of forensic conclusion. There was only silence— no blood, imprints in the grass, just soft forgetting.

The only mystery was that there was no mystery.

The child had simply fallen, received a chiding from her mother, and in her embarrassment had left the shoe behind.

I imagined when she got home she threw the useless twin away,

In her new higher heels, soft plush red, without anklet straps, she found her balance— took ten steady steps on her own, then walked downstairs to show her mom.

And maybe that’s how we change, I thought— not with revelation, but with a quieter symmetry— trying again in shoes of our own choosing.