What Sorry Means

Colt was a fast kid.

He was fast at running — the fastest in his whole first grade class. He was fast at eating his cereal in the morning, so fast that milk sometimes dribbled down his chin. He was fast at pulling on his shoes, even if they ended up on the wrong feet.

And he was very fast at saying sorry.

"Sorry!" he'd say, already halfway out the door.

"Sorry!" he'd call over his shoulder, already running to the next thing.

"Sorry-sorry-sorry!" Like the word was a little speed bump, and he just had to bounce over it and keep going.

One Saturday morning, Colt was building a rocket ship out of cardboard boxes in the living room. He had tape and markers and aluminum foil everywhere. It was going to be the best rocket ship anyone had ever seen. He was going to fly it to the moon, or at least to the backyard.

His little sister, Nora, was sitting nearby, carefully coloring a picture of a rainbow. She'd been working on it for a long time. She had picked every color just right. The red was on top, then orange, then yellow. She even colored a little pot of gold at the end with her favorite glitter crayon.

Colt grabbed the big roll of aluminum foil and swooshed it open wide — and his elbow knocked right into Nora's cup of water.

The water spilled everywhere.

Right across the rainbow.

The colors bled together. The red smeared into the orange. The yellow turned into a soggy brown puddle. The little pot of gold got so wet it wrinkled up and tore.

Nora's eyes went wide. Her lip wobbled.

"Sorry!" Colt said, already turning back to his rocket ship. "Sorry, Nora!"

He pulled off a piece of foil and pressed it against the cardboard nose cone.

Nora started to cry. Not loud. Just the quiet kind, where tears roll down and you don't even wipe them because you're too sad to move.

Colt's dad walked in from the kitchen. He had a dish towel over his shoulder and a coffee mug in his hand. He looked at the puddle on the table. He looked at Nora's ruined rainbow. He looked at Colt, who was humming and taping foil to his rocket.

"Colt," his dad said.

"I already said sorry," Colt said quickly.

His dad pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He didn't look angry. He just looked like he was thinking.

"Come here for a second, buddy."

"But I'm building my—"

"I know. Come here for just a second."

Colt sighed a big sigh, the kind that puffs out your cheeks, and walked over. His dad patted the chair next to him, and Colt climbed up.

"You said sorry," his dad said. "I heard you."

"Yeah." Colt nodded. "I did."

"Can you say it again?"

Colt blinked. "Sorry."

"Slower this time."

Colt scrunched his eyebrows. Slower? What did slower have to do with anything? Sorry was sorry. You said it, and then it was done. That was the whole point.

But his dad was waiting. Not in a mean way. Just waiting, the way he did when he knew Colt had more inside him.

"...Sorry," Colt said, a little slower.

"Now," his dad said gently, "can you look at Nora and tell her what you're sorry for?"

Colt opened his mouth and almost said, "For the thing!" But he stopped. He looked over at Nora. She was still sitting in her chair, sniffling. Her rainbow picture was soaked. The colors she'd worked so hard on were all mixed into a muddy mess. The glitter crayon gold was ruined.

Colt looked at it for a moment. Really looked.

He thought about how long Nora had been coloring. He remembered her humming while she picked each color, holding crayons up to the window to see which orange was the most orange. He remembered her saying, "Colt, look! I'm almost done!" and how proud she had sounded.

Something inside his chest got heavy. Not the kind of heavy that hurts. The kind that makes you slow down.

"I'm sorry I knocked the water onto your rainbow," Colt said. He said it to Nora, not to the floor, not to the wall, not over his shoulder. To her. "You worked really hard on it. And I wasn't being careful."

Nora looked up at him. Her eyes were still wet, but she wasn't crying anymore.

"The pot of gold is ruined," she said quietly.

"I know," Colt said. And then, without anyone telling him to, he said, "Do you want me to help you make a new one?"

Nora wiped her nose with her sleeve. "You don't know how to color inside the lines."

"I can try."

"...You can do the blue part," Nora said. "Blue is easy because it's the biggest stripe."

"Okay," Colt said.

His dad didn't say anything else. He just picked up his coffee, gave Colt a little squeeze on the shoulder, and went back to the kitchen.

Colt and Nora sat side by side at the table. Nora started a brand-new rainbow. She picked the red crayon and carefully, carefully made the first curve on top.

Colt waited. This was the hardest part for him. He wasn't good at waiting.

But he waited.

When it was time for the blue stripe, Nora handed him the crayon. "Stay inside the lines," she said, very seriously.

"I will," Colt said.

He went slow. Slower than he'd ever colored anything. His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth. The blue stripe was a little wobbly, but it stayed mostly inside the lines.

"Not bad," Nora said, tilting her head.

"Thanks," Colt said.

Nora took out her glitter crayon and made a new pot of gold, even better than the first one. She added a little leprechaun next to it, with a green hat and a big smile.

"That guy's cool," Colt said.

"That's Larry," Nora said. "He guards the gold."

"Hi, Larry," Colt said.

Nora giggled. It was the best sound in the world after crying.

When the new rainbow was done, Nora held it up. The colors were bright and perfect. The gold glittered. Larry the leprechaun smiled his big smile.

"It's even better than the first one," Nora said.

She looked at Colt. "Thanks for helping."

"Thanks for letting me do the blue part," Colt said.

Later that afternoon, Colt went back to his rocket ship. He taped on the last piece of foil and stuck a paper flag on top that said THE COLT ROCKET in big wobbly letters.

But before he climbed inside for his pretend mission to the moon, he walked over to the fridge, where Nora had hung up her new rainbow with a magnet.

He looked at it. He looked at the blue stripe — his blue stripe, a little wobbly but good.

He thought about how sorry used to feel like a speed bump. Just a word you bounce over.

But today it had felt different. Today it had been slow, and real, and it had turned into something. It had turned into sitting next to his sister. It had turned into coloring inside the lines. It had turned into Larry the leprechaun.

Colt smiled.

Then he climbed into his rocket ship, counted down from ten — nice and slow — and blasted off.