Chapter 4

     “Yes, I would like a chicken nuggets happy meal with a milk and a small diet coke, please.” I yell into the speaker of McDonalds.  A crackle comes back with the total and a request to drive to the first window.   Lucy is strapped in her carseat and is looking out the window, mesmerized by the large pictures of food.  It’s the end of spring and the start of summer.  The days are starting to get hot and sticky.  It’s mid-morning and the hairs on the back of my neck are already starting to cling to me.  She is wearing a sleeveless outfit that is periwinkle blue bloomers at the bottom and a white bib on top that is embroidered blue flower with pink centers.  The pants legs have elastic around it so the bloomers puff out, making her bottom half look round and soft, like a pillow.  The elastic pulls around her chunky legs. I love her arms and legs, fingers and toes. They look like big plastic oval beads that I had as a child that popped together.  Her legs and arms are smooth and round and tanned.  At the joints, she has thin white seams where it looks like she was sewn together, but it is really just the spots where her nearby chunkiness has shadowed out the sun.  She is wearing an elastic headband that has appliqué roses sewn on every inch or so.  Her baby fine hair is pulled back tight in front of the headband and then puffs in a big mess on the backside of the headband.  Even though I brush her hair every morning, it takes less than an hour for her hair to regress to it’s natural state of rat’s nest. 

 She is very quiet in the back seat, just watching the world go by.  That’s my Lucy, ever so observant.  I used to think that small children couldn’t hold onto memories until I had Lucy. Even though she is only two and a half, she remembers everything down to the smallest detail.   She says, “Memberin mommy?  Memberin when we went to da store and da lady had a doggie in her purse?  Memberin mommy? That doggie had on a pink dress. That’s silly, isn’t it mommy?”  I will have to search my brain high and low until I can remember that event, but low and behold, it’s always there.  Lucy is also freakishly advanced when it comes to talking.  People are often confused when they meet her because she is a little peanut in size with a round baby face, but she sounds like a school girl when she talks. 

  Today we are going to the park outside of the airport. The park connects to a golf driving range.  She loves airplanes.  I have never taken her here before, but I know she will love it. My camera peeks out of the diaper bag.  I can’t wait to capture the look on her face when she sees the airplane flying so low over her head.  We have stopped at McDonalds for lunch.  Money is very tight, so we split a happy meal.  That’s the trouble with being a stay-at-home mother.  There is never any money and I feel like I have to justify every purchase.  Never mind that my husband spends twice the amount I just spent on lunch every single day.  I don’t work, so I don’t bring in money, so I don’t have the rights to any money.  

       I have other friends who are stay-at-home moms and their lives aren’t like mine, but their husbands struck it rich with the I.P.O. boom.  I am amazed and jealous at their lifestyle.  Their days are filled with Gymboree classes and trips to the mall, where they actually buy stuff.  Lucy and I go to the mall and play in the play area and walk around and look at the pretty things, but we can’t afford to buy anything.  My friends go where they want without ever once thinking about the price of gas.  They pay for entrance fees to state parks and they pay for movies that they will never get to sit all the way through.  I can’t help but think that if money wasn’t an issue for us, our life would be great.  Money is our biggest argument these days.   I bet once we get some money, our lives will be happier.    I know I shouldn’t be this frivolous.  I just want to do something sweet and special for Lucy.  She is such a good girl.  So we splurge on our happy meal and we go to the park. 

By the time we get to the park, Lucy and I have split the fries already.  Once there, we sit together on the park bench and eat the rest of our happy meal together.  She eats and smiles and chatters away.  I wait, camera poised in one hand, for the airplane to come so I can catch her excited face.  She sees my camera and starts to pose, singing , “Cheese!”  She makes several funny faces and expects me to take the pictures and then show her.  “Emme see da baby” She says to me.  She doesn’t understand that she is the baby.  I have a video camera at home that we bought before she was born.  I used to capture video of her weekly when she was little. I have basket upon basket of mini VCR tapes of her doing nothing.  When she hit about a year and a half, the videos all started with her as the center, until she caught me videotaping her, at which point she runs over to me and all the video shows it the top of her head.  The picture wobbles and goes gray with pink smudgy edges outlining her chubby fingers over the lens.  The screen is dark, but her voice is still loud and clear saying, “baby baby baby!”  She wants me to show her the baby on the video screen.  At that point, the tape usually ends.  The real scene usually ends with her in tears and me frustrated after we have engaged in a long session of what feels like a “Who’s on First” parody. 

We sit on the park bench while she poses like a supermodel and I wait for the airplane.  I listen closely, but all I hear is the clinks of golf clubs knocking together and the sizzles of golf balls taking flight.  Then it comes.  In a low roar, I can hear it before I see it.  We can both feel it in our chests.  As I get into position to take her picture, I notice something is wrong with Lucy.  The smile melts of her face and reveals sheer terror.  She  scrambles  to get to me.  Like a koala bear, she has climbed my body so fast, I am not sure how she got into my arms.  I don’t even have to hold her because she is wrapped so tightly around me.  I squeeze her  while making shushing noises so she feels safe. She is sitting on my left forearm while my right hand covers her ears.  I have to take my hand off her ear for just a second to pry her arms loose from my neck so she doesn’t suffocate me. The second my hand comes off her ear, she tries to bury her head in my chest like a sand crab.  I put my hand back over her ear but I put my lips close to her forehead so she can hear me. “Look, Lucy. Here is comes!  It’s an airplane!  Look sweetie, nothing to be scared of.”  Her face is buried between my chest and my hand, but with the word airplane, she turns her head in curiosity.  She can only see with one eye because she isn’t quite ready to take the chance on a two-eyed look.  As she looks up through her eyelashes, the belly of the airplane roars over top of us.  The ground shakes and our bodies are full with the rumble.  It is so large and amazing that I stand there, head tilted back, mouth gaping open.  How does something like that stay in the air?  I look down to see if she is having the same reaction, but I keep getting drawn back to the awesome sight of the airplane.   I am furiously switching my gaze from the airplane to her-airplane-her-airplane-her…and then it happens. Sheer exuberance pushes through the fear.  Her head snaps up and her pop-on fingers point at the sky. “Airpom! Airpom! Airpom!”  She wiggles free from my arms so she can stand on the bench and get a better view.  “Airpom! Airpom!”  She jumps up and down and squealing in delight.   I move to press my legs against the bench and I stretch out my arms so I serve as a barrier.  I am pretty sure she is going to bounce her way right off the side of the bench.  The rumble dies down and the air goes still.  The airplane is gone.  Everything seems ever so quiet.  Lucy stands, mouth gaping, still pointing at the airplane as it disappears into the sky.  “Airpom” she whispers quietly with each repetition, “…airpom….airpom.”   She looks at me, finger still pointed to the sky, her eyes filled with amazement.  It takes only a few seconds of quiet before she is jumping up and down again, scream, “Again! Again! Again!” 

 “We have to wait for the next airplane to come.  Come here. Let’s sit and finish our lunch and wait for the next airplane.” I lead her back to her food and she follows.  One look at her and I know she is on the edge of tears.

“C’mere baby.” I say, holding out my arms to her.  “What’s wrong?”

“I want airpom.” She says in a way that is so small and innocent, I can’t tell if I want to cry with her or giggle at her innocence.

“It’s coming back again.” I say as I gather her in my arms and sit her on my lap. “I promise. Another one will be coming by any second now.” She looks at me through tears and dutifully eats the rest of her lunch.  We wait …and we wait…. and we wait for an airplane to come.   I am just about to give up and gather up Lucy’s deflated body and take her home, when another one comes…and another one…and another one.  They are coming  fast and  loud.  The air fills with the smell of fuel and exhaust.

 It’s the grand finale of airplanes and we have the best seats on the lawn.  Lucy is screaming and jumping and spinning in circles.  Her hands are clapping so furiously that I notice they are blotchy and red.  She has to stop to itch her palms every few minutes.   Her head it tilted back as she watches, mouth open, sunlight washing over her face.  I sit quietly on the bench, sipping my soda, watching the most wonderful moment, trying desperately to etch it into my memory forever.   Then all goes quiet again.  The only sound is the soft murmur of men’s voices and golf balls slicing through the air.

 I pack Lucy back in the car as she recounts, with finite detail, every airplane that we saw.  I drive for about thirty seconds before she is slumped over, head swinging freely in deep sleep.  Once  home, I put her to bed and pick up the house.  I make dinner and she wakes up.  She dresses up like a princess, complete with tiara, and we have tea.   We read a book and wait for daddy to come home.  She hears his car in the driveway and rushes to the bay window to see if it’s him.  She is so tiny that she has to stand on her tippy toes just to see over the ledge.  She sees his sandy hair pop out of the car and she runs to the front door, bouncing up and down.   I check his face through the screen door to make sure it will be okay.  His face looks easy and relaxed.  His face has looked this way for weeks now.  I am always looking for signs of the change and every day that he emerges from his car, fresh and clear, I exhale.  As he opens the door, she rushes to him, screaming, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”  He scoops her up and looks at her face gently. 

“What’s up?” he asks easily.

“We went to see airpoms today!” She is still talking but he looks at me.  I’m not sure what to expect from the look, but it’s a look of amusement.

“Really?” He asks.  She is telling him about every airplane she saw.

“Did you fly the airplane?”

“No Daddy, you’re silly!”

“Really, you could fly like this!” He says as he swings her so he is holding her by her chest and her belly.  He zooms her through the air making engine noises.  She yells to stop, but her giggles let him know she doesn’t really want him to stop at all.  He circles the house twice before plopping her in her seat for dinner.  She fixes her tiara, which has slid to one side of her head and has only managed to stay on because it’s tangled in her hair.  I sit on the sidelines, watching the scene, filled to the brim with happiness. 

 “What’s for dinner?” he asks, turning to me.

 “Enchiladas.” I reply back.

 “Your mommy makes the BEST enchiladas.” He says to Lucy. He doesn’t wait for either of us to get settled.  He is already eating.  She yells, “Lanalanas!” for emphasis.

“You, little one, are getting hot dogs.” I say to Lucy as I slip her plate in front of her and kiss the top of her head. The last time I tried to give her regular grown-up food, her mouth rejected the bite.  She sat, mouth wide open and tears streaming down her face while her tongue furiously pushed the food back out of her mouth and all down the front of her dress.  She kept her mouth open until I wiped out the leftover pieces with a napkin and gave her a drink.

  I sit down and look around.  He is smiling.  We are all sitting together, eating dinner, happy.  This is what I want.  Happily ever after.  Everything else has washed away.  This is all I know.  This happiness in this moment is all I want.  I immediately forget everything else.   

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[Callista-Jade]

I`m still reading. Again, this is amazing...