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.

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 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.

My face feels rubbery under my fingers.  My teeth click together, the right side off balance.  In the passenger mirror my closed-mouth smile is almost normal.

“I think it’s wearing off.  I can smile now.”

Jake asks me to smile for him.  A previously paralyzed muscle tugs at my lips.  His eyes leave the road.  “Smile bigger,” he says.

I bare my teeth, the lips peeling away.  The taste of latex is still strong.  I recall gloved fingers and cold metal routing around my mouth with a shudder.  Jake laughs, his face breaking into a brief smile that curves at both corners of his mouth.

My eyes flick back to the mirror, the wide smile glued to my face.  Returning my gaze is a stroke victim.  The right side of my mouth is broken, pulling away from the teeth as if held there by an invisible string.  The corner forms an arrowhead that points straight across.  The left and right sides are a grotesque contrast.  There are two faces where there should be one.

The mirror thumps against the roof of the car as my attention wanders over the passing landscape.  The seat belt tugs at my chest as the car comes to a stop in front of the furniture outlet store.  We walk inside together, each of us carrying a child.  Salesmen infest the floor, marked by their flattering compliments, fake smiles, and white tags.

I try not to smile too wide at the greeter, but I fail.  Her head turns with me, a curious squint in her eyes.  Cadence’s fresh shorn bowl-cut frames her face with delightless eighties’ fashion as she runs through the recliners, popping out the footstools.  She discovered her old baby nail scissors a few days ago, chiming, “Mommy, I cut my hair,” from the bathroom.  This tragic hairstyle is the result.

Jake meanders through the rows, plopping into various choices, dwarfed by a popular style fit for Andre the Giant.  The search for an amazing and affordable recliner begins with disappointment, and ends with more than we expected.

C’est la vie.

Blue lights twinkle between plastic blue and silver baubles.  Filmy ribbon snakes through the fake spruce branches.  The rythmic blinking is hard to look away from, inducing a tranquil hypnosis that for me means Christmas.  This is no time for admiring, though.  There is too much to nitpick, from the blue that is shades too dark blending into tree, to the poor lighting obscuring the excruciating detail (exscrutiating because it took the entire day to complete).  Trees shouldn’t take this long.

The lighting can be fixed.  The chair screeches across the lineoleum under the kitchen light fixture.  I step onto it, a very naked Cadence calling after me.

“Mommy, what are you doing?”

“I’m fixing the light.”

“But why?”  She’s all about the explanations these days.

“Because it’s broken.”

“Why?”

“Because they get old and they stop working.”

“Oh.”

She doesn’t understand, the confusion just adding to her curiosity.  Her short blond hair cascades over her shoulder blades, her neck curving at an uncomfortable angle to watch my hands twist various pieces.

On my tiptoes, I tackle the circular glass fixture.  I twist the last doohicky cradling the fixture in my left palm.  My balance is not good, wobbling.  My teeth clamp onto my lip with the effort.  I picture the fall, the glass spilling out of my hands, my legs flailing from the chair, trying to land upright, Cadence picking through broken glass.

This was a bad idea.  Keep it together.  I hold my breath until the fixture is on the table.  I replace the old bulbs, and decide I’ll leave the fixture replacement to someone a little taller.  Jake.

Light drenches the kitchen, flooding into the living room.  How have we lived this long without it?  The tree improves very little with the extra light.  I holler for Jake as I dig through the coat closet for an old lamp.  It’s extra light also fails to improve the tree.

Jake emerges from his basement cave.  He steps onto the chair and attaches the fixture with reaching room to spare.  We gather by the tree.

“It looks pretty good.”

“Really?”

My eyes get lost in the blinking lights, awed by the compliment.  It means something coming from Jake, who never compliments lightly.  It’s good enough for this year, I conclude.  I begin a list of possibilities for next year: purple ornaments and a pastel purple ribbon with the blue (although, that might be pushing the limit for Jake), baby blue ornaments, or the more traditional red and gold.

Cadence pounds on the piano keyboard, pretending to play a song from My Christmas book.  I love Christmas.