I can’t remember when the kid developed a fixation with rainbows—it’s been nearly as long as she’s been able to speak. She used to think anything curved was a rainbow, which meant that macaroni had strong rainbow energy, and that her dress with little macaronis on it was a rainbow dress. Her favorite color is rainbow. Her favorite story character, which she invented, is the Baby Rainbow Unicorn, whose Scheherazadean bedtime story titles make regular appearances on A1: “Baby Rainbow Unicorn Has All The Ice Cream”, “Baby Rainbow Unicorn Gets A Babysitter”, “Baby Rainbow Unicorn Goes To The Doctor”, “Baby Rainbow Unicorn Wants To Ride In The Car”. The houses in her bedtime stories have rainbow doors or rainbow windows. Her tea set is a rainbow tea set.

So, yesterday, after we met up with her teacher, Ms. Mita, in Jackson Heights to say a sad goodbye and exchange gifts, after climbing back into the car to head home, after the clouds opened up for an appropriate and timely bout of sobbing, after driving fifteen minutes down a flooded Queens Boulevard, the sun came out—and with the sun, a brilliant rainbow. We pulled over into a parking lot and unbuckled Kina from her seat so we could stand outside and show her a real, wild rainbow. She adored it.

And then she asked to listen to Moana.

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