2 years

2 years ago today, Dawn and Storm and Faith came home. To stay. William and I went to get them from the airport in the late, humid afternoon. Storm and Faith ran all the way down the terminal. Storm tackled me and Faith tackled her twin. Dawn, weighed down with 2 kids worth of entertainment for an international flight, including 2 carseats, took an eternity to get to me. But when she did, she dropped everything. I'd be lying if I said that she grabbed me first. She, of course, scooped up William and tickled him and turned him upside down and covered him with kisses. Then she grabbed me and enveloped me in a hug remarkably tight for someone who should have been in muscle failure. She picked me up and twirled me around. She looked deep in my eyes while squeezing my face and said, "Take me home."

I confessed this about it just a few days later.

I did once call you my partner.
Strangely enough, I was
Responding to the USO booth lady's
Question,
"Who are you waiting for?"

Seizing my chance though
With great trepidation,
"My partner and my other children."

She politely answered,
"Awww . . . that's nice."
(Though I'm sure she didn't think so.)

I slank (Is that the past tense of
Slink? And if one
Reflects on slinking and so
Requires the past tense, isn't it
Probable that the very act of
Slinking was something else
Entirely?)

Away
As anyone does at the end of
Polite time-passing with
Strangers.

I didn't get to see her see us.


.

4 Years

4 years ago today, I spoke to Dawn for the first time. I knew who she was prior to April 13, 2005, but I had never talked to her. I saw her for the first time at a Wives Club Christmas Party at Fort Rucker in Alabama. I was less than a month from delivering my first baby. I was hot and irritable and fat. Had all of that not been enough to make me mad as hell, I was also missing my favorite show to be there. (My husband had "urged" me to attend.) I don't remember anyone else from the party.

A few months later, she called and left a message on my machine, asking me to come to someone's Mary Kay debut party. I went only because she asked me, and as it turned out, she didn't even attend. (Dawn always adds here in the story that I left there the newest Mary Kay rep in Lower Alabama. That's true. Laugh and I'll kick you in the shin.)

A few weeks after that, on April 13, I found myself at someone's baby shower. Again, I DID NOT want to be there. Again, I had been "urged." I had a 4 month old little boy, no friends and a serious case of low self-esteem. I had put on my cutest outfit and had William in his most unstained romper. I arrived late, of course. The only seat left was on the sofa, next to Dawn. Relief swept over me. She was a somewhat familiar face and voice and totally disarming. Her little girl Faith was 18 months old and leaning on her knees with a chicken tender in each hand. I was mush for that baby girl immediately. As the shower droned on, Dawn and I started exchanging polite conversation, mostly about the babies, as I recall. They were exactly the same size. Faith could walk and talk and eat chicken, and William was just a cuddly, drooly, sleepy chunk-a-baby. But they were the same height and weight.

When the shindig was over, Dawn and another girl left together. As I was changing William's nasty pants, I recognized that I was strangely jealous and I had to shake it off and chalk it up to my horrible postpartum depression. Dawn came back in. I was hoping that she was coming back to talk to me, to set up a play-date or something. (It occurs to me that I haven't told you what she had on. Remember that I and everyone else had on a pant suit or a dress. Dawn had on these crazy baggy capris that I later found out were Maternity Pants. She weighed about 130 lbs. She also had on a tattered and faded Philadelphia Fire Department sweatshirt. At the time I thought it was totally weird, if not inappropriate. Now I think it is ADORABLE!) She stood in the doorway between the den and the living room and announced, loudly that she was having a cook-out at her house on Saturday and that everyone was invited.

I was giddy.