Hanging with the Girls

We sit on the couch, my girls and me. We kiss and we cuddle and we giggle about silly things. We stroke each other's arms. We whisper, "I love you" into each other's necks. We watch cartoons, all tangled together in a tight complication of arms and legs. My AirBear puts her hand on my belly and grasps a fat roll between her thumb and her forefinger. She doesn't look up. I feel funny. "Air," I say, "please don't play with my tummy." "Ok, Mom," she puts her arm around my neck and places her cheek over my heart. There she lies and watches the TV. I feel her misty breath sweeping over my cleavage T-Bird has wriggled her toes in under my backside. Every now and then she shifts her feet, and I am uncomfortably jabbed. I grab her arm, swivel her around, and tuck her little shoulders in underneath my arm. Her temple rests against my armpit. Suddenly I am very self-conscious, "Do I stink?" I ask her. She puts her nose right up against my wrinkled armpit skin and breathes in. "No, you're fine," she is absorbed back into the animated movie that we have watched a million times together already.

I am a mommy hen. I have my chicks. We sit like this, my girls and me. We are happy. We are in love. We can be like this forever.

Except when we don't. Because sometimes we aren't. Sometimes we can't stand being so close to each other. Sometimes we yell. Sometimes we roll our eyes at each other. Sometimes we ignore each other, hoping that one of us would disappear. We cross our arms over our breasts, daring the other one to surrender to our demands. Sometimes we shut ourselves in our rooms, closing the others out. We grab at our self. We want to be alone with ourselves. We are tired of each other. And irritated. And bored. And we breathe in our own lonely spaces. We breathe and we remember. We remember that we chicks have got to stick together.

Eventually we swim away from our islands. We look for each other. Sometimes it isn't easy. Sometimes it is dark and lonely. But it never takes very long. We do find each other. We hold on to each other. We say we're sorry. We say: Sorry. And: I love you. And then the world is alright again.