It is a good day. They’ve let me have my baby for an afternoon. We are in my living room on the couch. I have bought stargazer lilies and their perfume tints the room, a small threaded offering of golden pollen dripping down onto the green vase. Her small, curved feet nestle in my lap. She reaches up and spins the globe that has always rested on the side table. She says, “Mama.” Her finger lands exactly as I have taught her on the island, a green speck of land in that mass of blue water.
I say, “Do you want to go there?” I have shown her pictures of the island. Pictures of myself at her age, in front of that old white house, held by my mother and flanked by my father, who stands behind us, his hands held behind his back. I’ve shown her pictures of temples and lotus flowers and school kids in white uniforms. All the beautiful parts. She nods, big eyed and serious.
Maybe it is possible. Maybe one day she and I and Daniel will be there, in the land of my birth. Sitting at a table with Amma, eating and laughing while the ceiling fan far above stirs the thick air. I think about being surrounded by my first language, about dipping my fingers into food made by old women. I think of the smash of a river against my stomach, the slipping under to let the current take me while downstream women beat clothes on rocks and work suds into the folds, about the riotous calling of birds in the morning, about the sudden heat of the day saturating everything, making the sweat stand and glide on skin. Bodhi and Daniel. They would love it.
The thought blooms through me, makes my skin crackle in a sort of excitement. Yes, why not? I could show them this place I came from. It would be homecoming.
I fold the idea carefully away into a drawer in my mind to be taken out when the time is right. Now I read Alice in Wonderland to her. Both of us reveling in the tiny bottles, the unreliable cakes that swell or shrink Alice from giant to ant-sized and back. I remember being small and reading these stories, feeling the uncertain and fluid parameters of my child’s body. I read her the exploits of the Queen of Hearts screaming for blood, shouting for heads to roll, issuing commandments that change the very color of the roses.
The power to have the flowers painted a color you desire, this is a mother’s tyranny over the child. The white roses dripping red, the red roses dripping white. I feel her body vibrate next to mine. I wonder if she feels the same recognition I do. I hug her to me, inhale deeply; this is the scent of the sacred. She is my greatest treasure. I know this on days when I am not pulled under by despair or rage.
*
On a day in May, I pick her up and we take the subway to the ferry pier. It is a place populated by seabirds, gulls, strange small squat birds with jauntily hat-like feathers. By the ocean’s frothy edge she reaches into the bag into which I have collected the heels of loaves. I hold her as she opens her palm and a whirl of squawking birds are drawn to us as if by magnetism. There is a sudden loudness when before there had been quiet gray water, wispy clouds. Thrilled, she wants to be put down into the center, where she throws her arms up into the frenzy of winged creatures. Now there is a greater gathering of wings and beating of feathers. She runs back to nestle between my legs and we watch the small, flighted dinosaurs with their balanced tails and cruel beaks peck and squabble over our offering. I kiss the tender curve of her flower-soft cheek. This perfect, small person belongs to me.
The sea smashes below us. The tourists come to lean over the railing and exclaim at the span of the bridge arcing overhead. They turn to face the weakened sun. It is hidden behind such billowed and racing clouds that it looks like the full moon. They pose for pictures with their arms about each other. They smile and gawk; they look out into the mist and point out Alcatraz, beyond that Marin, the magic hills of Sausalito. They are right, the beauty of this place is astounding.
I gather my child closer to me. We go home spent, her hand in mine, holding tight. The skin of her palm against mine. The heat of it, the tenderness of it, I could not have imagined before I was a mother.
Twenty-three
His mother calls. We chat sometimes. About Bodhi mostly, but this time I can tell she’s trying to tell me something. She hedges for a while and then says, “You should call Daniel. You know he misses you, right?”
A silence. My pulse thumping. “Really?”
“Yes, child. I know my son. He loves you. He goes around here like a zombie. He barely eats or sleeps. The universal signs of a broken heart. You need to be together.”
“But … he’s the one who left.”
“Couples go through these little things all the time. But you’re married. You should be together. It’s the best thing for the baby too. Call him.”
*
Hope runs through me. Is it possible? My life, can I get it all back? Can it be as it was? All of my lost paradise? Perhaps! Why not?
I pace through the house rehearsing conversations, hoping, praying, begging whatever invisible deities rule over reuniting broken lovers, promising them my fealty and anything else they demand. If I have him back, they can have all my treasure.
I gather myself and call him. He picks up immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to…”
“What?”
“Say hi.”
“Okay.” Strained exasperation I can hear over the line.