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6:25 a.m.
In bed Isabel flops dramatically, fighting to stay escaped, until she surrenders prostrate on her back. She awakes to the mock solar system on her ceiling and the usual song on her lips. Eidlewiess, eidleweiss, every morning you greet me. Small and white, eidleweiss you look happy to see me. She languishes in bed as if she knows to enjoy the opportunities of a child now, while she can, before she is driven by the responsibilities she sees her mother attending to. Leading her dazzled and sleepy, laziness appears naked and Isa pulls the sheet over her head to shade her face from the room charged with scarlet light.
She sings louder. Asli hears.
6:35 a.m.
She dries her hands and switches off the music. Slowly opening Isabel's door she peers in and asks,
"Where's my baby?" Asli's sun-warmed singsong voice excites her.
"Where did she go? I don't see her. Did someone take my baby?"
This ritual always produces a hypnotic smile Asli can feel from beneath the sheet as she inspects the entire room for the missing girl.
"Is she in the closet? Noooooo. Is she behind the dresser? Noooooo."
"Ah hah! I see sparkly toes peeking out, she must be here, under the covers. Good morning angel. How does your garden grow? Did you sleep well?" Often when Isa is with her Asli is unreachable, so whenever she turns her sheer focus to her, Isabel feels the warmth that flowers must feel when they blossom through the snow, under the first intense rays of the sun.
Isabel nods her moist head and reaches to be picked up, "A hold"
"Of course, I love to hold you."
Together in the rocking chair Isa lays heavy on her chest. Asli notices she no longer fits just right, but scrunches down so her head is right between her mother's breasts. What is left of them. Her marble body has softened. Last week during the waiting room ritual at the doctors office a heftier woman had her arm draped on the rest next to Asli's arm. She noticed the woman glance over then ask in a tarted-up voice if she thought a child would rather snuggle a Barbie doll or a teddy bear. Asli bewilderingly replied teddy bear, then was advised not to lose too much weight because "children do not like to cuddle bones." Asli was not one to say out loud what she was thinking, so she nodded and turned away.
Remembering this she tells Isa, "That lady must have baby weight issues and came up with that nugatory anecdote." Asli has other issues.
She squeezes her daughter securely to her and continues rocking and humming to the unhurried riser while thinking the words: Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly and I am older than I once was, but younger than I'll be, that's not unusual. The child's physicalness hovers above the fire of her mother's life. Asli offers an internal smile, it is early enough in the day for her to feel thankful to be home, like this. Here.
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