Explosions and the Subsequent Pieces of Heart in My Eyelashes

Boom!

Towards the end of my pregnancy I had a permanent feeling of nervousness. Excitement, sure, but mainly nervous anticipation and a sort of fear that by giving birth to a new child I would be sacrificing my first born. That by bringing a new child into our family I would be shutting Archer out. That he would resent me and us, be hurt, sad, jealous, frustrated, alone. I feared a second child might come between us - our bond broken, our love weakened.

When my doctor told me I was in labor and should probably get my ass over to the hospital pronto, I broke down. Archer was with me in the doctor's office, crumpling the paper on the examining table, sucking on a lollipop and I looked at him, back at my doctor and then burst into tears. It was time to go to the hospital which meant it was time for me to drop Archer off at a friend's house which meant it was time for me to leave my son to tend to our daughter, shiny new.

I was crushed by the thought of looking in my rear view mirror and not seeing him in the middle seat anymore. From now on, there would be two, Fable on the passenger side and Archer behind me kicking my seat.

I'm pretty sure my feelings were completely natural, even commonplace for mothers soon to deliver their second born as evidenced, here:



Of course, no parent is ever certain how a second child will be received by their first. I spent months preparing for the worst, coaching Archer with stuffed animals, asking for his help in song.

"Will you sing a song to baby Fable in my tummy?" I would ask.

Archer would look at me, head cocked, bewildered but eventually...

"Fable, Fable, give me an answer do/ I'm half crazy over the love of you/ It won't be a stylish marriage/ I can't afford a carriage..." he would sing into my belly button like a microphone.

Still. We had no idea how Archer would react to his baby sister. No clue that our only child would take to big-brotherdom like a seasoned professional, like it was the most obvious and natural thing in the world.

Hal and I were blown away.

Minus the little running away incident, Archer has gone beyond brotherhood, his instincts to nurture not unlike a new mother, his ability to be patient, kind. His need to protect her, hug her, hold her hand in the backseat of the car, no matter how hard he must lean to his right to reach her.

The day I dressed Fable up in her fancy sailor dress Archer gasped, ran to her and said, "Look at you, Fable! You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my whole life!"

Indeed, I agreed.

For the tenth time that day, I had to hide my tears from him. Because who says that? Who holds their sister's bottle for minutes at a time, dabs her mouth, kisses her cheek, reads her stories before bed every night, tucks her in?

I should have known that Archer would, and yet? Truly, I had no idea. No idea how much Fable's arrival would make me love Archer more. As a brother and caretaker and kind, doting, heartbreakingly generous soul. No idea that having two children would be like this.

Boom! Boom!

People say that when you have two children your love expands, your heart gets bigger to make room for a new human to love. For me, expansion was just the beginning. It was like someone dropped a piano of adoration on my head and left me tending to the pieces of my obliterated everything. I was a goner the first moment Archer rushed the hospital room to kiss his baby sister on her forehead...

I've been a goner ever since.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

BoombooomboomEXPLOSIONboominfinityboom!

GGC

She Who Holds Hour Hands

She watches him place the striped and solid pool balls in the triangle one by one. He explains to her what numbers are on which color and she listens intently, nods her head.

"Hm," she says. "Quite right about that."

She is his great-grandmother, his Nanana and he her first great-grandchild, sole great-grandson, first of the new batch of little darlings. He continues around the pool table, circling and studying and she moves toward him, scooting ever so slightly in her bench, a flower to the sun.

She studies Archer behind bespectacled eyes, through the filter of light strands and the dust motes they illuminate. She adjusts her weathered microscope with a slight cock of her head, sorting through memories, making room for this one here. This one, right now. This moment of quiet between them before the balls break.


And the clock stops for a moment before the Gods rush to knock on it with their gold and silver hands until tick, tick, tick... time crawls on.

We are all employed by time, I think, as I listen to their voices collide in a sort of duet: my Nana and her faded English accent, my son and his constant song.

There are decades that separate them but their closeness is clear and she speaks to him as if he was her peer, rather than a little boy with dirty fingernails.

"You have a beautiful voice," she says and he ignores her, concentrated on his project, oblivious to the melody he exudes.

"One, two, three... " he counts, as she counts backward. Their watches ticking clockwise and counter until

"Five, four, three..."

...their hands overlap.

(We are all employed by time.)

My Nana believes that she and Archer have met once before. Before he was born. Before she was old. Before.

"Just... Before."

When Archer was a baby I'd catch her whispering in his ears tales of remember when, asking him the kinds of questions one reserves for ghosts and cottage-cheese ceilings late at night.

And I would watch her watch him, wondering often how it felt to be responsible for so many lives. Children, grandchildren and now great...


"Do you ever look around," I ask, crossing over into the photograph, "at your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and think, I made this family. It is because of me that they exist..."

She thinks for a moment, pondering my question, then shakes her head.

"I've never thought about it before. Too busy watching everyone laugh, grow up."

Archer finishes counting the pool balls, organizes them in the triangle, placing the yellow 1 ball in the middle of the pyramid, surrounded by stripes.

By now the family is milling in and out of the pool room attached to my late uncle's office, a room untouched since his passing two years ago, empty save for the light that exists in his place. A light that exists in all of us as we flicker in the windowsills of one another's kitchens and hallways, weddings and anniversaries.

We are trick candles that cannot be extinguished by wind.

We all laugh and Archer picks up his triangle and patpatpaaaaaat, the balls go rolling across the table in fourteen different directions.


But not the cue ball. The cue ball doesn't move. Archer insists the cue ball stay safely by his side. He calls it his "ice cube" and he holds it in his hands, tiny globe with dings and scratches, seemingly fragile despite its strength.

My Nana turned eighty-years-old on Monday and in two weeks Archer will be four, their birthday celebrations days apart. And in the same way I want to stop the clock, hide the birthday cake from Archer, tuck the presents under the bed so do I want to keep my Nana away from the party hats. Don't blow the candles out.

"They make me want to live forever," she says about her grandchildren, smiling. "So I plan to do just that."

We agree she will outlive us all, writing books and taking canoe trips cross country, painting landscapes, telling stories. Watching the children play at her feet, leading their standing ovation.

There are days when I long to stop clocks, hide birthdays from little boys and older women, knowing quite well the things that time is capable of taking away.

...But far more often than that there are moments that serve as reminders of the immense benefits package time offers its employees, like wrinkled hands that open to tiny fingers and second hands that overlap with the minute.

Not to mention cue balls.

"Fear not the clock," I remind myself, "It is time that promotes us all."

Happy Birthday, dearest Nana.

GGC

When I was little I wanted to be a princess. Little did I know that one day...

"Honey*?" Archer asked this morning, as I was getting him dressed for school, "Are you a Queen?"

"Aw. No, silly. But I am something way cooler. Do you know what that is?"

"Um... Um... Um..."

 "I'm your mommy who loves you!"

"No!"

"No? What do you mean No?"

"YOU'RE A QUEEN!!!"

(And with that? I'll live happily ever after.)

GGC

*Archer no longer refers to Hal and me as "Daddy" and "Mommy." Instead he calls us both "Honey," as in "can you please wipe my butt, Honey? Thanks, Honey. Goodnight my Honeys"... Goddamn adorable that is. 

**As you probably noticed, GGC has a new masthead! Made with love by my friend, Heidi Burton, an incredible artist whose beautifully quirky art and stationary will change your life.