A few days ago, the girls and I trudged into a nearby store. The wind beat at our hunched backs, nagging our hair into ratty cords that stuck to our cheeks. The store’s nursery inventory was disappearing from the shelves with every wave of turbulence. The shelves themselves were rolling away from the entrances. Above the roar of the dust storm was the desperate flapping of the flag. It was strange how it drowned out the other sounds. I thought of it not as significant, but as a curious. Any other flag on the same pole would flap as loudly.

I worried then for my tomato plants. The flowering peas. The fledgling corn and sunflowers recently sprouted. The artichokes waiting to be planted in peat pots where they could adjust to their new home.

I checked the plants the next day after the storm had past. The tomatoes, three of them nestling inside water-filled plant protectors, were healthy. The other plants were hugging the ground, only the newest growth looking up to the sun. The peat pots were strewn under the peripheral weeds along the garden bed, their passengers appearing very dead.

Jake’s motorcycle is surprisingly smooth over the patchwork road. The air in my helmet feels stale, clogging my lungs rather than filling them. I adjust the vent over my forehead. A weak breeze tattoos into my face. The “fresh” air smells of summer, leather, and exhaust.

It’s our seventh anniversary. More years than I have been in my twenties. The bike accelerates, my fingers clutching at Jake’s black leather jacket. I remind myself to breathe. My body writhes with anxiety and thrill. Interesting how the two go hand in hand. I watch the road ahead with interest, wondering when it will end.

We’re so different now than seven years ago. So different from that year of married infancy. I still wonder how he caught me. I was nothing more than a child when he knelt at the waterfalls holding the ring I wear on my left hand. I was nothing more complicated than a bird flitting from one seed to the next, never satisfied with one tree, one yard, one perch. Feral and harmless.

A far cry from the person I am now. Tamed. Loved. Loving. Needed. Needing.

Happy.

The first windswept year left us both hugging the ground. I checked the garden again yesterday morning. The sunflowers are again following their namesake. The peas are producing pods. The artichokes are bearing new leaves. The surviving plants look stronger than before, their stems thicker.

Something to be said for storms.

Fuchsia jellyfish undulate through the waveless tank water. The water sucks the darkness in from the corner of the room, spotlighting its glowing, ethereal inhabitants all the more. The jellyfish turn orange, their stunted tentacles tickling gaily.

Cadence presses her hand against the aquarium glass, reaching for them. In the dark, the glass barrier is invisible.  Her hand is suspended with the jellyfish. The light over the tank changes again. The jellyfish turn blue. Cadence drops her hand to her side, the glass far from stopping her imagination. Her head is tilted back, a cascade of bobbed, blond hair brushing the back of her striped cardigan. Her mouth is open, her eyes are lit, watching the color-shifting jellyfish float in soft circles.

Hana leans from my hip, a curious hand stretched out. A surge of children push towards the glass. Hana’s hand recoils, her body folding closer to mine. She chirps a question in my ear. I nod pretending to understand.

“Jellyfish,” I tell her.

We leave the jellyfish exhibit reluctantly, hopping from one exhibit to the next. At first I keep a casual eye out for the others we met here, but soon we are parted, taking in the different fish at individual paces. We linger by the sting ray pool. When we leave it, mine are the only wet fingers.

The sharks, penguins, and Anaconda hold particular fascination for Cadence. Hana ventures a few times from my hip to the viewing platforms, pointing at different fish with her usual awe for life. Her brunette, half, side pony is motionless with the jerks of her head. I’m still eager for the day that the hair near her face reaches her chin. Until then, short ponies and copious sprays of hair products are my only way to keep her hair looking girly.

We pass by the sting ray pool a last time before leaving.

“Wait, Mom. Wait! I want to touch the sting ray.”

I look at her doubtfully, remembering her earlier eagerness and then hesitance. I lead her to an empty side of the pool. She pulls her sleeves over her elbows following the flapping motions of the distant sting rays. Hana leans forward her hand stretched towards the water. I let her dip her hand in. She looks at her wet hand as if that is all the excitement she needs.

Two sting rays come toward our side, one gliding over the other.

“Here it comes, Cadence. Get ready.”

The sting ray skims the side of the pool, its wing tasting the air a few feet away. Too bad. I was hoping he’d do that closer to us. I get ready to watch him pass by us, too deep for Cadence to reach. I get ready to wrench a disappointed four-year old back to the car. He floats away from the wall, and like a feather, floats back.

His wing curls over the side of the pool in front of us as he skims by.

“Hurry, Cadence, touch him!”

We reach our fingers out, his slimy skin sliding through ours, and then he’s gone. Back to the bottom of the pool.

My hands feel the stinging salt residue. The smell reminds me of Hawaiian beaches. I look down at Cadence. Her face is happy, her expression incredulous. Like a little sting ray of joy.

The morning air is chilly, puckering the skin below the sleeves of my oversize tee shirt.  Stripes of fresh snow run up the driveway.  The lawn, so recently thawed, is hidden beneath a new paralyzing layer of wedding white.  The sigh passes through my lips, involuntary as sneezing.  Winter is tireless, and I tire easy.  A person can only take so much of darkness and cold…

…movement in the snow.

A small spider makes its way towards the street, its black legs standing out against the snow in stark opposition.  I wonder if he’ll survive winter’s last stand.  If he’ll make it another month until true Spring.  I skip over him, running to the garbage and tossing a dirty diaper at its gaping mouth.

When I return the spider has made little progress.  I’ve seen many people wander into the snow.  Like him, they are tempted from their shells by a false Spring, only to find themselves lost and cold.  Helpless to stop it, I watch them go.

I always hope they’ll come back changed as little as possible, but the journey always changes us. Will this error make the spider stronger, tolerant and able in the cold?  Or leave him weak and stumbling in the Spring?

My shoe sinks into the snow where there used to be a spider.  I lift my shoe, examining my footprint.  There is a brown dot on the inside edge of my arch.  I brush the bottom of my shoe on the snow, leaving a streak of brown behind.  I sprint up the steps and into my warm house, rubbing the goosebumps from my arms.

It was just a spider.

Yellow light reflects from the kitchen window, making the dark beyond the glass panes even darker. Out there frost is curling its way over the blades of grass. It sprinkles flecks of white to match the narrowing strip of snow left by the fence.

The first appearance of green has persuaded a premature spring fever in me. The papers plotting out this year’s garden are tucked away for now, bidding my return on the next bout of fever. One is a scaled map of the irregular garden patch, the others are lists I’ve compiled of vegetables in order of when to plant and what to companion them with. The shopping list includes all the things that would take me out of the maintenance equation. I am the common link to my garden failures.

Water streams over my fingers, its warmth addictive. The house is asleep. The only noise, me. Sleep. Sometimes I hate it. It comes when I finally feel productive. It lulls when I most need to work. It teases me with relaxation when it knows as well as I that my nights are riddled with interruptions. Last night there were four.

Hana is easy.  I hear her coming.  Cadence is sneakier, only discovered when I roll into her unexpected form.  She’s learned she gets to stay longer if I don’t wake up.

As if wakened by my thoughts. Cadence moans, and Hana cries in answer. The dishes are as done as they’ll get tonight.

My ears are filled with sounds: the kitchen faucet pouring hot water on my rag, Lady Gaga crooning Paparrazi over my stereo, Hana uttering baby gibberish and playful squeals, and angelic strains coinciding with the music.  I follow the last  sound, watching Cadence’s mouth synchronize with Lady Gaga.  She catches me peeking at her, breaks into a sheepish smile, and turns away.

Hana picks up Cadence’s disgarded toys: a half chewed barbie (from when dogs still terrorized the house), and a new Ariel bath toy.  She swings them in the air.  Her bed head mohawk sways in the toy engineered air.  She talks to the Ariel doll, smoothing its hair away from its face.  Her big sister’s trash has proved to be her treasure.

“Hey!”  Cadence has noticed the special attention paid to her toys.  She wrenches them from Hana’s hands.  Hana falls backward, crying, screaming.  I diffuse the situation, each child cradling one doll.  They stare at me and each other with matching expressions, lowered brows, and pouting lips.

So much for angelic.

The table begins to shine under my rag.  I work around the center piece: a glass vase filled with red hybrid roses.  Out in the distance something is missing.  The mountains lurk, half finished, half painted.  The stripe of cloud/smog erasing their base from the painting.  It would be pretty otherwise.

I touch one of the rose petals, recalling to mind Cadence’s warning the afternoon Jake and the girls gave them to me.  You can’t touch them, she’d said, or they’ll die.  Funny to hear her say it.  I’d taught either her or Jake (or both) about how the oils on our fingers will kill the petals, leftover knowledge from high school Horticulture.  I drop my fingers.  It’s hard to resist touching beautiful things.

My left temple throbs, shoots of pain coursing behind my eye and along the left side of my skull. I grind my teeth against the ache, an old habit that I stop as soon as I notice.

Hana’s cries build in her throat as she arches her back, sliding down my lap. Baby melt down. There’s still an hour to bedtime, but her body clock doesn’t seem to notice. Her tantrum runs its course, ending with her across the room, deciding whether she wants to cry again or come back to my lap.

The only light in the room comes from Project Runway on the big screen. It lands softly on her features. She’s thinned a lot since last Halloween’s pictures. She had been 7-8 months old, her chubby cheeks filling out her bunny hood. Adorable and tiny.

She has hair now. An eventuality that I’m not ashamed to be excited about. Her cheeks are slimmer, the fullness shifting higher to her cheekbones. When she smiles a generous row of teeth appear.  People say she looks like me, but I see a lot of her dad in her.

She’s not smiling now. She points at the t.v. The visible side of her mouth curves comically down, like the face of a sad clown. She begins to cry, the sound low and pathetic. It’s good to be thankful for small blessings. I’m just glad she isn’t screaming again. I gather her back into my lap, adding Cadence to my empty hip when she wanders near.

Cadence takes dress-up very seriously. Her pink fairy get up is cute, with streams of sequins, matching wings, and a short skirt that flares like a bell. Cadence pretends to fall onto my shoulder, receiving a stream of giggles from Hana. Cadence repeats it to an encore of excitement from her sister. They shift, they slap each other, they cry, they hug….

The clock in the corner of the t.v. says it’s just a few minutes to bed time. Again, small blessings.

“Okay, ladies, let’s go kiss Daddy.”

Hana is good with cues. She slides from my lap, her lips protruded in an exaggerated pre-pucker that extends beyond her button nose. Cadence is soon to follow, gearing up for a race destined in her favor. I brush the recliner with a promise to return soon with a couple of pain relievers dissolving in my stomach. Perhaps there’ll be time and room on my lap for editing later.

One can only hope.

Hana’s persistent cries grow hoarse from her bedroom.  They quiet and die.  The juice must not be worth the squeeze with a soar throat.  Soon I’ll creep back in, retrieve the blankets she’s thrown outside the crib, and tuck her butt-protruding form in their warmth.

We play this game twice every day: nap time and bedtime.  It doesn’t change much.  Every so often, I’ll find one surviving blanket wrapped around her.  It’s her favorite, the patchwork, cuddle quilt that my sister sent the Christmas before she was born.  So far, it’s bearing its abuse well, the seams still crisp and whole.

She’s been tucking her little fist just under the front lip of her diapers, for comfort or warmth.  If there’s no waistband in her way, she discards the obstacle entirely.  I’ve avoided putting her in nightgowns since the three nights I found her bare bummed, her diapers topping the pile of blankets beside her bed.  Then, there was the smear incident, but that taught me a different lesson entirely.

My jaw clicks as I attempt to yawn away the mute button on my left ear.  No dice.  With the fevers, congestion, and soar throats abundant in our family this week, this little ailment doesn’t feel so threatening.  Hana’s poor button nose is red and chapped around the nostrils.  Cadence limits her playful personality to a reclined position, laughing when her voice sounds funny, and crying when her throat hurts.

Winter has come with sickness.  They do go hand in hand at our house.  Frost tipped the taller blades of grass this morning with snow blowing onto the deck the day before.  My favorite new tree, the precocious midget nectarine I fondly call Amelia, is turning a pleasing shade of gold.  Her fellow trees are still debating whether to drop leaf forever or follow her example.

The fresh chill brings a sadness with it.  I can’t wait for Spring.

Rain clings to the screen window, warping the view of the street around its shaded bubbles, like polka dots hanging in the air.  When it rains the waiting water on the ground will dance.  This is not a dancing rain.  The drops are many, but so minuscule the glittering film awaiting below doesn’t acknowledge the impacts.  An occasional porch light glares through the gray.  It’s Saturday, but the windows are dark, like the sky.  The street looks freshly deserted.

“Mama.”  Hana’s imitations of Cadence are getting better.  Sometimes I hesitate, trying to figure out which child is calling me.

She’s secured in her high chair, plucking generic honeycomb cereal from the tray, another hand resting on her bottle of milk.  She sees me peeking from the corner, trying to observe her unseen.  Her expressions ping pong between happiness and irritation.  The latter wins, her eyebrows drooping in straight Oscar the Grouch mode.  Her chin presses into her neck.  I laugh.  She’s gotten that look down.  Her head and eyebrows lift.  She smiles, proud of her little trick.

The house has become her jungle gym this last month.  She’s climbed to the top of every couch, bed, and table, and fallen from half of them.  Her latest battle wound is a scabby, swollen top lip.  I think hard to remember which fall caused it.

The playdate of course.  The friends’ floor had been wet from children running from the wading pool to the kitchen.  Hana had been its victim.  Poor girl, wasn’t even climbing then.  I remember being mesmerized by the scent of white chocolate fondant frosting, a smell that lingered in my memory all day, when I heard the all too familiar thunk.

At first the wound was lost in the mess of red liquorice spit and blood.  Was she hurt?  Was it just liquorice?  But some of the liquid was too red, the wrong kind of red.

She doesn’t seem to notice it now.  I pull the lever on her tray until it slides away from her.  As soon as her feet touch the floor, she’s running.  She stops at the top of the stairs listening to the sounds of Mulan from downstairs, and staring confused at the gray background behind the window.

I guess postponing the river rafting was a good idea.

The garage door wheels squeal in their tracks as one panel after another rounds the edge.  Light pours through the growing gap.  Juice sloshes inside the Ziploc bag I slap onto the barbecue tray.  I lift the opposite tray, lugging the monster towards the light.  My head pivots from the barbecue to the drive outside, and the girl standing three feet away on the other side.  My heart flips, calming with recognition.  Just the neighbor girl.  Her eyes are wide, her face long and serious.

“The ice cream man fell out of his van,” she blurts.  “His head hit the road and something yellow came out.”

My brows draw together.  I pat my left pocket.  My phone is still there.  I hear sirens.  Are they headed here?

“Has anyone called…?”

Her eyes relax.  “Yeah, my dad’s with him.”

I relax too, relieved that a man’s life isn’t dependent on my lack of emergency medicine.  “Is he moving?”

“I don’t know,” she says with a nonchalant turn down the drive, no doubt in search of another ignorant ear to fill.

I’d heard the ice cream truck music earlier,  the plinkety, plunk of children’s tunes.  Even groaned, hoping Cadence wouldn’t hear it.  How long ago had that been?  Twenty minutes?  A half hour?  I follow the direction of the street’s staring eyes.  The van is two houses up.  The man is on his back, in the road.  A neighbor kneels on the far side of him.

I join a huddle of my neighbors, their mouths filling in some of the holes of the story.  Seizure is a theory.  Heart attack another.

I can’t remember his face, but the light shining through his halo of gray hair reminds me.

My finger fans over the pictures on the side of the ice cream van.

“Okay, Cadence, pick one.”

She ponders over the pictures, her eyes fixing on one in a snow cone cup.

“That one.”

I glance at the coins in my palm.  They’re all there.  “Can we get the ‘Two Ball Screw Ball?’”

The ice cream man has gray hair, punctuated with persistent strands of his youth.  His nose is prominent, his frame scrawny.

“What a name, huh?”  He hands me the blue paper cone, heavy with its frozen reward.

I smile with half my mouth.  “Yeah.”

I pour the change into his hand, uttering a thank you, and making a quick retreat.

His head is moving, his right hand grabbing just below his left shoulder.  The neighbor presses him gently down.  The sirens are near.  An ambulance turns onto the street.  Those who were in their houses earlier, have filtered onto the street, like me.  I feel guilty for staring, for turning the man who sells our children ice cream into a spectacle.  But we have to know that the ice cream van won’t stay here, its door gaping open where the children play, and no one to sell them ice cream.

The paramedics take over for my neighbor.  I turn away, back to the abandoned barbecue, and then inside with tonight’s dinner.  The meal finished, a faint strain of Pop Goes the Weasel brings me back outside.  I walk to the end of the driveway.  The street is empty.  The van is gone.

The small features on Hana’s face smooth as I rock her.  Her eyes drift open and shut with the undulations.  There’s something unspeakable and sacred connected with these calm moments.  They are so rare anymore.  Her arms burrow between her body and mine.  Her knees fold under her round little belly.  She shifts her head from one side of my neck to the other, taking brief seconds to glance over my face before she rests her own against my shoulder.  My kisses patter across her forehead before I push us from the chair on the last rock forward.

She pulls away from my shoulder, puffy eyes curious about where we’ll go.  I lean over her bed.  She leans too, towards the bed.  I roll my arm over her belly and lower her in.  Her hand clamps over the cloth leg of her baby Belle doll, dragging it under her as she lands.  She releases the leg, posing her hands primly under her face, using the doll as her pillow.

Her eyes stare past the mesh border of her bed, pensive.  I tuck a Sesame Street quilt around her bundled shape, wondering what a baby has to mull over.  The quality of apple sauce?  The number of nightlights lining the walls?  What mischief she can unfurl tomorrow?

At the door, I blow a kiss at the back of her head.  There’s a smile in my thoughts.  Mommy needed this.  It’s not hard for me to cherish an easy night.