“I wish I’d never been born,” she says and pedals away, bell trilling, riding right over the drawing she made earlier, of a black cat with jewel-green eyes. Olivia.

I wasn’t lying earlier; the place really is a mess. Lauren spilled some jelly in the kitchen then rode through, leaving a sticky track through the house. There are broken crayons all over the couch and dirty dishes everywhere. One of Lauren’s favorite games is to take each plate out of the cupboard one by one and lick it. Then she yells, “Dad, all the plates are dirty.” Now she rolls off the bike onto the floor and starts pretending to be a tractor, growling and crawling. “As long as she’s happy,” I mutter to myself. Parenting.

I’m taking my noon pill with a drink of water when Lauren bumps into me. The water slops out of the glass onto the blue rug and the pill falls from my fingers, bounces, a tiny yellow airborne dot, and is gone. I kneel and peer under the couch. I can’t see it anywhere. I’m running low, too.

“Damn it,” I say, without thinking. “God damn.”

Lauren begins to scream. Her voice becomes a siren, rising until my head is ready to explode. “You’re swearing,” she weeps. “You big, fat horrible man, don’t swear!”

And I just snap. I don’t mean to, but I do. I’d like to say that it wasn’t the big, fat part that set me off, but I can’t. “That’s it,” I shout. “Time out, right now.”

“No.” She claws at my face, her sharp fingers seek my eyes.

“You can’t play in here if you can’t behave.” I manage to hold her back and eventually she stops fighting.

“I think you need some sleep, kitten,” I say. I put her down and start the record. The whisper of the turntable is soothing. The woman’s pretty voice filters through the air. It’s a winter night and no one has an extra bed, no one has any candy … I can’t recall the singer’s name right now. Her eyes are full of compassion. She is like a mother, but one you don’t have to be afraid of.

I pick up the crayons and felt-tip pens and count them. They are all there, good.

I sleep-trained Lauren with this music. She was a fussy child and she is growing into a difficult adolescent. What do they call it? A tween. Some days, like today, she seems very young and all she wants to do is ride her pink bicycle. I worry about what happened today. There is a lot to worry about.