Butter
Tendrils of fog seemed to wrap around her arms, her legs. Fingers of it creeping along the backside of her neck, breathing against her skin. Her son is calling for her, but everything looked filmy as if a large sponge has scrubbed the landscape around her. She can hear his voice, the voices of other families, the yips of small dogs. Finally, she feels his body hit her thighs. He stretches his arms around her legs, squeezes his hands into the backs of her knees. He swipes his head from side to side on her jeans, leaving smears of sugar and biscuit flakes. Her arms feel gummy as she reaches down to touch his head, her palm on top of his silky baby hair. Her whole life wrapped up in a little boy who looks nothing like her.
She blinks a few times to refocus the market around her, to clear her eyes of the film and fog that seem to settle there when she isn’t paying attention. Her son reminds her so much of her husband: same golden hair, same broad chin, same toothy smile. As usual, she finds herself searching for a bit of herself, some feature that has been tucked away, something that only she would notice. The truth is, the older he gets, the more of a stranger he becomes – this person who once resided inside her body, so unknown.
He looks up at her and she wipes crumbs from the corners of his mouth and the tip of his nose. He hands her a piece of his biscuit. “Here, you try it!” He demands. She should protest. She is supposed to be on a strict diet – a healing diet to coincide with all her medicine. She accepts, and it melts on her tongue. Her husband is at a booth, paying for their breakfast. She asks her son if he has any more and he runs over to her husband, pulling a very full white paper bag from his hand. He holds the bag out in front of him like he’s trying not to spill it as he crosses through the crowd back to where she is standing.
She kneels which makes the earth spin around her, so she closes her eyes, takes sharp breaths in through her nose, the cold air stinging at the back of her throat. When she opens them again, her son hands her a biscuit like a prize. Good job breathing through that one, Mom! Have a treat! It’s sticky and buttery and inside are hidden pockets of jam and she is so thankful for the woman whose hands delicately cut this from dough. She’s thankful that the bursts of jam keep her pinned in the moment and stop her head from spinning into the gauzy state of barely-there that has become her norm. But mostly, she’s thankful for butter, and sugar, but mostly butter.
Her husband joins the two of them and he pulls her back up to standing. The taste of the biscuit on her tongue is the only thing that keeps her from passing out from the sudden change of height. Don’t stand up so fast! Her doctor reminds her every time she sees him. Her husband places a palm against her elbow, steadying her body as it sways without her permission. He’s talking to their son and she pulls at their voices like a string leading her back to them. Her husband’s hand feels firm against her arm and she finds herself wanting very badly to sink into it, to curl up the length of her body and put it inside the protective hollow of the palm of his hand.
Her husband suggests they find a spot to watch the parade, since this is what they have come for, the only reason she is out of the house at all. Her son hops in the wagon they have brought, wiggling his body into the only corner not full of chair legs or blankets or travel mugs full of coffee (for her) and hot chocolate (for him). They pick a spot along the street, half-hidden from the sun whose rays usually cause her skin to erupt in bright red streaks that last for days. Her husband shakes out a chair and she sinks into it, breath once again steady now that she has stopped moving. She drinks in the air and pretends that each breath is almost filling her lungs. Her son sits on her lap and her husband drapes a blanket across the both of them before shaking out a chair for himself. He passes her the bag of biscuits and the three of them finish them off while they wait.
