I’ve
tied up all the cupboards! She will not be getting into any of them.
But
what if she drinks out of the toilet?
Why
would any child eat poisons?
Because
they’re often delicious colors. Baby pinks and blues, purple…Anyway, she won't
have time to get into mischief with all the fin activities that I have planned.
We will paint Easter eggs, make pasta shell necklaces, play in the sandpit, and
collect cicada shells…
I tune out briefly while you enthusiastically
list the program. Clearly you are looking forward to all of this. Easter with a
toddler and a newborn. Sounds like a headache, but I suddenly realise that
maybe my own grandparents enjoyed hanging out with me in this way.
I know that it was always a highlight of my
week, going to see them. I think we went every week, stayed overnight at least
one night. It never occurred to me that
they were busy with their own lives or that other children didn’t have this; I
assumed they liked me being there… It was the little things. The smell of the
bergamot in earl grey tea and a T-bone steak on the grill… the bubbling of the
lids on the Esteel pots, warm, warbling, comforting. The sound of French yabbering
or Italian opera on the long wave radio in the background. The smell of books,
the crystal prism I would play with, the pictures of us on the wall, and my
cousins in their far away lands. The
journeys around the garden, oranges and mint we picked and birds we fed, a
secret gate into the neighbor’s yard we discovered one day, like a reverse of
the Frances Burnett story.
Long afternoons sitting on the front porch,
looking out at the peace and grass of Bigland Avenue in the hazy suburban sun,
surrounded by blooming azaleas in white, purple and pink, the smell of the gardenias
weaving through the air.
If I
have $3.50 and I buy 4 oranges at 35c and 7 apples at 12 c how much do have
left?”
$1.25!
Correct!
I have 30 pieces of butterscotch. I want to save more than half and divide the
rest to my friends Hugh and Amy, but I must give Hugh more. How many pieces can
I give Amy?
6!
As the sun set we would head inside and we
would warm the plates for dinner. We would discuss interesting things over
supper, ethics, history, religion, current events, communicsm and then it would
be baths, fantasies and bed. Our bedroom was the very one mum and Mary shared.
There was a bathroom that smelt like pretty soap, always.
We could self direct on the contents of the
bedtime story.
I’d
like a princess, a unicorn, a boiling pot of water, a sword, a poison, a stolen
book and a crocodile.
Somehow she always had a brilliant story in
her head. I though she was a creative genius.
He would give us a kiss goodnight before we
went to bed and the world felt safe and secure.
In the morning I would get up as soon as I
saw light. He as always already pottering in the kitchen preparing his wife a
pot of tea, grapefruit, toast and the newspaper in bed. I would
try to help, mostly yapping around his ankles as we put together her
little breakfast-in-bed table and laid the cover over the bedspread to prevent
newspaper ink going everywhere.
I thought this was something all husbands
did for their wives.
I stir in the morning, my mid thirties soul stretching out to 135% of my
natural length, clocking the temperature, listening for the sound of baby Matilda
crying., rolling over to look at her tiny face.
I hear the spluttering of the coffee machine as it percolates Vietnamese
coffee , smell the inklings of it, hear him pull our mugs from the shelf and
pour two cups. I pick up the baby and smile at her little Peabody face as the
door rolls back and he walks in, gentle smile, brings me a cup of coffee and it
is like aromatic luxurious spoilt heaven.
I smile in delicious peaceful joy, wonder if he will keep doing it, and
if one day Matilda’s children will help him.
