She came to me one winter, at Christmas or my birthday perhaps. I can still see her face, pale pink and blue eyes, cherry cheeks and a rosebud mouth. She wore her hair as I did, in two long braids with bangs.  Her hair the same yellow I used to color the sun, mine, in contrast, black. 

She was beautiful. 

I carried her around by one of her braids, or by the little drawstring tucked under her chin. But mostly I sat her in my lap, this plump-faced head, and I gently squeezed her cheeks to feel all the mysterious and exciting things hidden inside the pin wale corduroy drawstring sack from which she was created. 

She had no name nor body.  Her felt eyes didn’t move but were no less expressive for it.  She had my heart, my curiosity,  and that was what mattered. 

Inside her soft pink head were small packets and sachets, tiny white plastic tubes with even tinier tops.  She smelled divine, small whiffs of delicate and delicious scents escaping the small gap down around the drawstring, all floral and honeyed and precious. 

In 1959 ours was a male-dominated home even though the number of boys and the number of girls were equal.  But still, masculine pursuits and activities seemed to take center stage, and usually this was just fine by me.  

I liked to dig in the dirt, ride bikes, play cowboys and Indians. I had female role models, of course, and they were adventurous, too, along with the men.  Women like Dale Evans, or Penny who tagged along with her uncle Sky King.They rode horses, and I mean fast, but Dale was always in skirts, and she lost some points with me for that.  They got rescued a good deal, too, but I would rewrite the plot line in my head so that the girls might save the day sometimes. 

My mother wasn’t overly fixy, although she looked beautiful on Sunday mornings in her hat and gloves, all made up for Sunday school and church.  But I don’t remember watching her prepare for a night out in her slip and pearls at a little boudoir table like mothers did on television. 

She had babies and spit up and dinner to contend with. 

My Aunt Maxine, out in California, sent me this floating face.  She had made it, my mother told me years later, sewing a drawstring bag from corduroy, gluing on the features, braiding yellow yarn into pigtails and gluing them on top of her head and down her cheeks with the ends hanging free. 

Inside she had tucked what seemed like hundreds of tiny treasures, Avon lipstick samples, little packets of lotion, bubble bath, sweet-smelling powders, discs no bigger than pennies with cherry red rouge inside.  My heart raced with joy whenever I stole a peek.  Still does, a little, this very minute, recalling it. 

The first little packet we opened, for I was too little to have mastered that skill, turned out to be a perfumed talc, although my mother and I thought it was lotion.  The fine powder went everywhere and I cried because now it was wasted, ruined. I was heartbroken. It took several days for my mother to persuade me to try again. We would be more careful next time.  

Because it is one of the worst feelings to waste a wonder. 

Because exuberance is great, but it can ruin the moment. 

And an aunt you seldom see still knows what you would love. She knows the size of a child’s hand, a child’s heart, and how a handful of tiny things, each perfect and complete, is a treasure forever, even decades and decades and decades later, the scent of talcum still freighting the air. 

Those babies arrived last week and more beautiful babies cannot be found in the tri-state area.  Your babies, if you have new ones, of course, are as beautiful, but really, only ours.  And my friend’s new grandson, who was almost born on the twins’ birthday.  He is beautiful, but that’s it. 

Such anticipation for such tiny little bundles.

And such exhaustion.

You would think we all gave birth to twins.

No big event is without a wobble or two.  One of the twins needed a little extra help so spent some time in the nicu. He was so well taken care of, so carefully watched, I managed to keep my fear at bay.  His parents never mentioned the nicu without using the word “angel” in the sentence, and they were talking about the nurses, the respiratory therapists, not necessarily their baby. 

He’s doing well now, but when I first heard the news, I was on my way out to look at big slabs of stone at the place across the river.  I was scared about the nicu news, but I was assured I wasn’t needed, and things were stable, go on and go. 

So,  I put my shoes on and headed to Newburgh. It was a beautiful day and I sashayed all over that yard, chatted with the guys moving the big stones around, pranced in and out of the showroom, engaged anyone who looked my way.  

It was only when I got home that I noticed I had on one white shoe and one grey one. All I can say is, thank goodness the white one was filthy.

Not even the same style shoe, exactly.  Allbirds, yes, but one grey with a dark sole and one white all over. 

So, maybe I was a bit more upset than I knew about little Harmon.

My job has been fairly easy. I cook. Get in provisions, promise with all the flair I can muster homemade delectables, and I make a big deal of it in a subtle way. And nothing but the best for this sweet little family.  Potato soup, the most humble of dishes, but one that takes seventeen ingredients and three hours to perfect.  I exaggerate a bit, but it did take awhile because I had to make two trips to the store. 

My famous lasagne, which is easy but involved. Three trips to the store for this one and every pot and bowl I own.

In between there is big brother, nineteen months, and learning the word “no” as if he were in the gifted and talented program.  He is learning to use it, I mean. Not hear it when directed at him.  As deaf to it as if it were a dog whistle. 

I give him a whole lot of slack, though.  He has been uprooted and sent to the grandparents, everyone in high dudgeon and he doesn’t get it.  His routine is upended, and he can’t quite figure out why he goes to the hospital to visit these little wrapped up loaves of bread they make him kiss. 

But, eventually, the sweet little family is released to go home, somewhere around midnight, so Harmon, who is staying a while with his new friends in nicu, can have his farewell dinner, but they don’t go straight home. 

Oh no.  They can’t do that.  No electricity.  

The wind storm saw to that, so off to nana’s.

Monday dawned, warm and beautiful, and while Mama rested and Daddy assessed the situation at home vis-a-vis the power, I spent an active and eye-opening afternoon with the toddler. 

He has just about had it.  He did some digging in the yard, which I am all about, too. He threw lots of potting soil out of the pots, he thinks that is is his job, and I don’t mind a bit. He was a little hard to settle from time to time, but he has to be as tired and discombobulated as the rest of us so I didn’t get too exercised about it. 

But then, he took my phone and wouldn’t give it back, and when I finally wrested it from him there grew a great revenge in his heart. Not in his eyes, though, and this is the scary part.  He turned to the coffee table and swept all the books to the floor. Calmly.  Unemotionally.  A real “leave the gun, take the cannoli” moment.

It was then I knew, the real fun is about to start.