Saturday's Rainbow

 A Saturday morning. I had finished the story books faster than I was supposed to.I am in one of those rare moods for socializing but my dad is studying. I am not able to withstand that. I didn't understand why he was studying. He has books piled on his old,wooden study table and sits cross legged on his chair.I watch his toes and want to see if they are longer than  my fingers. So I take a starategic vantage point, and I hear him repeat in an exasperated tone,"Mol, don't disturb me".

"Do you have reading test" Iask him. He doesn't reply.

"which class are you studying in?" I quip again, used to not being replied at times

He says a new word something that sounded like "fill".

"What is that?"

"Research" comes his single word reply.

" Is it something we can eat?"

"No, it will eat us?"

I am silent trying to correlate how something called"fill"(well then I guess he was doing a research degree) would eat me and my dad up.

I lie silent imagining how nice it would be if he was a dad who could just throw those books away and come under the table and chat with me...He does not, he is a serious man that way. So I tug at the curly hair down his legs," Why is it I don't have them on my legs?" Don't know why but he just does not answer all my queries.

I look up at him from under the table and he sees my restless self and asks "Now don't you want us to make a saturday rainbow?"  

I smile at that offer of socialization and crawl out from under the table. I collect my paint cans, brush and sit on my little chair beside his big one. He continues to read and write with apparent relief while I paint the sky green, the ground red, I draw pretty pink little birds, an orange tree and then by accident I rock a foot, the paint cans tilt over and as I look up confused at him, he  pushes away his books and then laughs and I catch my saturday's Rainbow in that laughter.