November 2, 2009

Your father and I fought this morning. All the while, I bounced you on the exercise ball and you slept.

Before the fighting: a walk through the grasslands behind our row of town homes. The grass is brown and dry and waist-high. There are paths, about the width of a car, plowed through the grass, and it takes about 20 minutes to walk the entire circumference. The park is bordered by Cedar Avenue and the town homes and a yard which houses three angry black canines that I call the dragon dogs. They attacked Luxy once, when she was running off leash, and I will always carry with me the image of her, writhing on her back and whimpering, while they frothed around her. Today, though, Luxy was pleased as punch. Your father threw a purple ball (the size of a small cantaloupe) into the grasses and Luxy would bound after it and then bring it back to us. You were strapped to my chest, your head poking out of your father's down coat, alert and blinking when the sun hit your face directly. And there was sun and blue sky and an old fashioned windmill turning in the yard of the house on the other side of Cedar Avenue.

Then, later, me bouncing you up and down, up and down, while your father stood in the kitchen doorway and raged. Or as close as your father gets to raging which mostly means his voice gets louder and darker and his arm movements larger and jerkier, as though we were suddenly on stage and performing our fight for an audience of thousands. I am much quicker to raise my voice in a fight, and this time all the words went right past your cheek and the conch curl of your ear. And you slept on and I bounced.

This afternoon we read at opposite ends of the same coffee shop. Not out of anger, I think, but out of a need to be in our own space with words and papers and thoughts.

When I left the house, Grandma Ricki was bent over your changing pad (on top of Luxy's kennel) and you were cooing to her. Your mouth widens into smiles and then shrinks back into a tiny "o."

You spend more time pressed to my body than your father does. I kiss the top of your head more and marvel at your skin more. I clean the lint that collects along the life line of your palm and clip your nails stealthily while you sleep. Some of this affection used to be showered on Luxy and some on your father and I think he must feel the absence of my touch more than he lets on. We have been intimate a few times, but half of my hearing and being is always tuned toward you so there is no time for lingering or bottom-of-the-ocean slowness and purposefulness. But I think it is touch more than sex that he misses and though I want to say there is an abundance of affection to go around and that the added doting over you should not mean a lessening of doting over him, the truth is that I do not have enough energy to give both of you what you need and what you deserve. And so our marriage will have to survive for a while on scraps and leftovers. But I think it is better to admit that we are hungry then to pretend that we are corpulent and well fed.