Vivian lay back on the emerald grass and gazed up into the infinite azure. Behind her, Vivian’s mother knelt before the rosebushes, spreading mulch with a trowel. Mother’s trowel made a soothing, swooshing sound as she worked. Vivian smiled and watched a cloud make its way across the sky.

“It’s so good to be free,” the little girl mused pleasantly. “Like that cloud.”

“Freedom is important,” Mother agreed. “Freedom to live your life as you choose, freedom to make decisions for yourself.”

Vivian considered this. “I don’t think decisions are a choice.”

“Nonsense. Of course they are. That’s the whole idea.”

Vivian rolled over to look at her mother. “I think decisions just happen.”

“They just happen? You have no control over what you, yourself, decide? That’s preposterous. If you couldn’t choose to make a decision, there’s no freedom at all, and that means no options.”

“Think about it, Mother. If you have to decide to decide, then you have to decide to decide to decide. And you have to decide to make that decision, and so on, until forever!”

Mother tapped her trowel on the ground. “You have a point there, darling.”

“But if deciding just happens, if it’s something you do naturally, without thinking about it, then it makes sense.”

“Vivian, my love, many decisions require thought. You’ll realize that as you get older.”

“That’s true. At breakfast this morning, I had to choose between toast or a scone. It was hard to decide.”

“You see? It doesn’t just happen naturally.” Mother troweled some more mulch onto the soil. “You do have to think, sometimes.”

“That’s true, but I didn’t have to decide to make the decision, did I? You said ‘toast or scone,’ and then I thought about how sweet and melty the scone is and how crunchy and fun toast is and finally I decided I wanted the scone. I didn’t choose to decide, it sort of happened. Like a hiccup.”

“I see. No matter what you did, even if you’d decided not to choose, you still would have made a decision.”

Vivian leaned up on her elbow and grinned at her mother. “Right! It’s just natural!”

Mother extended a finger to beep Vivian on the nose. “You are precocious, Vivian. Very precocious.”

“Could I have toast tomorrow?”

Copyright 2006 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.

Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.