You left me

I was, perhaps, five. We were climbing among the bales, great round prickly things like golden cinnamon rolls laid on their sides. The world smelled like dust and hay and our girlish sweat. We were pretending something, we were princesses or elves or maybe Robin Hood. I fell between two bales, my small body slithering downward, my shirt filling with straw. Thump to the ground, a space not quite big enough to turn around in, no leverage to climb out. The hay slipped and slid beneath my sandals. My knees were red. Help I said, trying not to cry. Your face like God blotted out the sky above me. You can get out, you said, and you left. I screamed and wept - it was an eternity of minutes before our father came, reached down and drew me out, small wretched peg from her hole. I don't remember much else other than the sinking despair of you leaving me, you leaving me.
I think that's when it happened, my decision not to need you anymore.