“Mommy, does Baby William get milk from your lips?”
Eleanor was asking me this one afternoon as I held her on my hip in the kitchen.
“My lips?” was the only reply I could give. What was she talking about?
“These, Mama,” she replied, patting my ample chest. “Your lips.”
Ah.
“And I have lips, too!” she said, raising her shirt to show me.
How — how — how did this mix-up happen? That’s what I want to know.
Every now and then, I get a glimpse: I’m rubbing lotion onto Eleanor’s back, her hair is pulled over her shoulder, and suddenly I see her when she’s ten, or sixteen, or twenty-one. The adult Ella is there, masked behind the round toddler tummy and dimpled knees. It’s like catching sight of an emerald snake darting through underbrush, or the flare of light within a lantern. Something that catches you off-guard, but seems perfectly natural, once you catch your breath.
Casa Camisas 