six

Maybe it is the weather, which is hot and humid, so much like the weather six years ago when she was born. Maybe it is because I am thick in the revision now, typing as fast as I can, absorbed in the narrative of our own lives. Or maybe I will always do this on Stella’s birthday, see the then and now, check the clock throughout the day and remember, yes, this is when the incident with the rice sock happened, this when her oxygen began to dip, this when the nurse handed me a plastic mask to place over my face, when the doctor said I needed a C-section. Later tonight, after I have tucked my big girl into bed, I will look at the clock and remember the minute the doctor pulled her from me, the way I vomited after she was safely out of my toxic body. I will remember the nurse, a man, who held the lima bean bowl to my chin. I will remember D at my side and then gone, following the isolette to the Special Care Nursery. In the following days I will also remember the other parts, the room spinning with mag sulfate still thick in my veins. I will remember the call from Special Care, the respiratory distress. I will remember that first time I was wheeled into the NICU.

And after I am done remembering (for now, at least), I will turn to my big girl with her long shiny hair, the girl who said to me on Friday: “Mom, do you know what the best thing in the whole world is?” And I said, “What?” And she said, smiling her toothless smile, “Kindergarten.”

I will turn to her and listen to her stories, the stories she narrates, and nod my head and smile, even when I can tell she is exaggerating. I will hold open my arms and tell her I’m sorry when I snap, and I will ask her whether she knows how much I love her. I will smile into her hair, when she obliges me, still, her arms stretched wide: “Sooooo much.”

Happy birthday, Stella. I love you.