Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [51]
“You want to go to the sprayground?”
He chewed, frowning. “Do we have to bring baby Spencer?”
“Yes, we have to bring Spencer. I can’t leave him home by himself. You know why.”
He nodded, reciting the words that I’d taught him. “The authorities would frown.”
“Right you are. And you should be nice to Spencer. You were a baby once, too.”
He smiled, showing his perfect white teeth. “Tell me the story.”
“Once upon a time,” I began. Frank Junior hopped out of his chair, circled the table, and hoisted himself into my lap. I snuggled him close, cupping my hand over the less scabbed of his knees, inhaling his little-boy scent, graham crackers and salt and baby shampoo. “Once upon a time you were a tiny seed in my belly. And you grew and grew and grew and grew, until you were...”
He joined in, smiling. He knew what came next, because I’d told this story so often. “Ripe like a plum!”
“Ripe like a plum. I went to the hospital, and out you came. You had no teeth . . .” Frank Junior leaned his head against my chest, his knees digging into my thigh, holding still for what I thought might be the first time all day. I closed my eyes, loving the feeling of his body against mine, the rapid beat of his heart. Our days for cuddling were numbered. Soon he’d be too big to sit on his mama’s lap. “And you had a tiny little cloud of fuzzy black hair, and you cried . . .” I stretched my mouth wide and did my best imitation of his peeps, “. . . like you wanted to go back in.”
He smiled, holding my hand, counting the fingers—one, two, three, four, five. “I liked it in there.”
“You remember it?”
He nodded. “It was dark, except when you were talking. Then I could see the light.” He tilted his head, regarding me seriously. “You talk a lot, Mama.”
“Huh.” I wondered whether this could possibly be true, whether he actually could remember being inside of me.
“Tell the rest,” Frank prompted, twining his fingers through mine.
“Well, I bundled you up in a blue-and-pink-striped blankie, and I gave you a little snack...”
His mouth curved up at the corners. “Goldfishie crackers?”
“Not goldfishie crackers!” I said, making an indignant face. “You had no teeth! What kind of mommy would give crackers to a boy with no teeth?”
He nodded—this, too, was part of the story.
“And I looked at you all over,” I said, my eyes filling with tears, back in the moment again, the hospital smells, the bright morning light through the windows, Frank looking so puffed-up and proud as he held the baby for the first time. “From your toes to your knees to your sweet little belly to your neck to your chin to your forehead, and I gave you a kiss and I said to your daddy, ‘I guess we’ll bring him home, and name him . . .’”
“Frank Junior!” With that, he was up and out of my lap, dashing toward the door for his scooter and the helmet I insisted on, for the park and the sprayground and the promise of a warm afternoon with maybe even an ice-cream sandwich on the way home. “Wake up, baby!” he hollered, his footsteps shaking the floor, and, on cue, I heard Spencer whimpering from the second floor. So much for my shower, I thought, but I didn’t mind much as I went up the stairs and scooped Spencer’s warm, sleepy, soggy-bottomed weight into my arms.
“Wet,” Spencer informed me, then plugged his thumb back into his mouth. I laid him on the changing table, pulled down his miniature khakis (copies of his brother’s, which were themselves copies of his dad’s pants), and unfastened his soaked diaper.
“We have to start talking seriously about that potty,” I said, wiping his bottom and the creases of his thighs. He nodded, the way he’d been nodding for months every time I brought up the topic of toilet training. I thought, again, of my sons as infants,