Day one: scalloped corn, green Jell-O, peas and pork with Great Grandma Judy. Also cards and a black and white movie in which male doctors smoke cigarette and clap one another on the back between delivering babies from between the legs of delirious mothers.
Day two: six hours in the car. Daddy walking with you in the ditch by the Taco Bell/Gas station. Screaming in the car and ceasing when "Great Hymns of Faith" began to play. Sitting in your Bumbo watching Auntie Martha roll out pizza dough. Sitting in Grandpa Mark's arms, in Grandma Dot's arms, lots of kisses.
Day three: bean bag toss in the backyard. Grass against your toes for the first time. Auntie Marth shows you one blade of grass and then another. While you nap, Anjuli and I sprawl in the sun and listen to Auntie Martha play the Tennessee waltz on the guitar. A song about climbing a high mountain. Warren arrives and we all sit on the three season porch. Anjuli feeds you squash and prunes, the prunes on the tip of the spoon so you eat the squash. You scream yourself to sleep. Across the country, Momo is shrieking herself to sleep too.
Day four: you and Daddy and I go out to lunch at a coffee shop. Then we go to the pet and hobby shop. You see tiny sharks, glo-fish, guppies, mice, kittens, bunnies. Baby rats squirm below their mother. You are strapped against me in the Ergo carrier, in the 75 degree sunshine we make a kind of oven between us. Then a bath outside, the yard stretching big around you where you sit in the dish tub we took from the sink. Tonight you will not attend the Maundy Thursday service. You will not see the stripping of the altar. You will not hear your Aunt Martha singing "Orphan Girl" in a crowded cafe. You will not hear her voice trembling in the high corners of the room.
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