The slice of sunlight makes my eyes hurt and my body shiver. He is not home and I dare to throw open the heavy curtains on the big living room window. For few hours I will let the world in and the pleasure is exquisite.
I look around the room and I feel shame at seeing old bed sheets and torn blankets serving as curtains on the back windows. The heavy front curtains came with house. Then two miniature banshees come tearing in yelling and laughing in the way only children can. Linus is just over two years old and Boo is not quite one and yet even they sense this is “good” time, fun time. “Play the music Mom, play the music,” they’ll start chanting and I’ll take my little radio out of its hiding place and I’ll shout “is everyone ready!” They’ll giggle and laugh and in unison shout out “YAH!” And the music will play and for these few precious hours, we will dance and sing and pirouette until we fall to the floor all dizzy. Then we’ll get up and do it all over again. Slowly the ugliness of the room, of this life, fades and folds into the shafts of brilliant sunlight and belly giggles.
The “popla” comes out. The popla is a ball in which we insert shapes in their proper openings and rousing shouts of “Right on! Bravo! and Gimme five!” bounce off the walls when success is achieved and all the shapes are inside. They will eat mac & cheese again sitting at their little table and I will have whatever they leave in their bowls.
While they eat and chat in their children’s language, I will watch the world from that window and wonder where these people are going to or coming from. I will watch the clock very carefully. There’s a dresser against one wall and like a happy ritual, Boo will go and sit in the bottom drawer with her book and pretend to read. Linus will crank the nose on her clown doll she calls “Peno” and she’ll invent words to the tune Peno plays for her. Later I will give them pieces of the apple I’ve concealed and my heart will break when they ask for more and there is no more. I will chase them and they will squeal with delight when I catch them. I will kiss their little faces and my stomach will clench at the taste of juice the apple left all over their cheeks and chins.
The time will speed up and the babies will slow down. Ready for a nap, I will carry them, one on each hip, to their little beds. I will cover them, kiss them and ask the angels to watch over them.
I will close the heavy curtains and let the suffocating darkness take its proper place once more. Before I hide the radio, Alice Cooper will sing “Only woman bleed…”
And I will sit in the corner, listening as the clock ticks down the minutes till he comes home. The day of sunlight will become a memory and I will try not to think what the hated darkness will bring.
Only women bleed…only women bleed…only women bleed…
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Tags: banshees, bed sheets, exquisite pleasure, music