but oh, those summer nights
Roses.
Exploding with their perfume, bundled into a bouquet in the white china jug that matches Jennie and Andrew's wedding set.
Which we eat on most evenings.
The fine finish of the table: pretty brown, polished.
Each child captured at three in their portrait on the wall.
The wallpaper, aged and faded, old-fashioned.
Ornate gold frames and ornate embroidered dresses and Anderson in either long shorts or little-boy Capri pants and Kennedy in his funny girly white shoes.
Maggie and Rainey looking as different as night and day, already so much themselves.
The real Maggie and Rainey sit with me at the table, playing cards.
Maggie's hair is puffy because it's curly and thick and she hasn't yet tamed it.
Her pajamas proclaiming Aeropostale! to the world. Her shorts too short. "It's the style."
Rainey's hair too short, cut for Locks of Love, looking for all the world like someone just chopped it off - no layers, nothing gentle about it. Harsh. Straight. SHORT.
Both girls in glasses at the table tonight, though Maggie wears contacts these days.
Rainey's oversized Tshirt swallows her up, even though she's the tallest in her class of petite friends - Emily Bunch, Millie Mae, Heather, to name a few. Tinies.
Rainey can't just play cards, so I had her run upstairs and get her music. Now the IPod dog dances to the mix CD in the player. Her IPod ran out of juice.
We sing along - Rainey completely self-aware, Maggie alternating between free and self-conscious (only when Rainey gets louder to drown her out), me just singing like I sing. I'm too old to wonder if I'm good or not... or to care, anyway. I love the music too much to sit silent when it's on.
Spades is the game we play anytime we can talk Jennie into it, which is the past two nights.
Tonight she went, exhausted, to bed just as we began.
Maggie taught me Speed and Spit. My mom and I play Spit, but it's not the same game as Maggie's.
I taught the girls Egyptian Rat Screw and Rummy when I was here a few years ago. We play now again.
I slap the quickest.
Maggie cares the most.
Rainey cares more about singing, and her game suffers for it, but it improves the general experience of the evening.
We drink sodas and eat Jolly Ranchers. Every time I walk into the kitchen, I swipe a sugar snap pea from the colander where they sit, fresh from Mrs. Donellan's garden. The flavor is melodious with this evening, with summer, with the screen doors open and mosquitos coming in and our laughter as we realize no one will ever win this game.
I slap a mosquito on my arm.
A rose petal falls from blossom to table.
Trooper jingles in, looks at all of us, jingles back out.
This is my summer.
Exploding with their perfume, bundled into a bouquet in the white china jug that matches Jennie and Andrew's wedding set.
Which we eat on most evenings.
The fine finish of the table: pretty brown, polished.
Each child captured at three in their portrait on the wall.
The wallpaper, aged and faded, old-fashioned.
Ornate gold frames and ornate embroidered dresses and Anderson in either long shorts or little-boy Capri pants and Kennedy in his funny girly white shoes.
Maggie and Rainey looking as different as night and day, already so much themselves.
The real Maggie and Rainey sit with me at the table, playing cards.
Maggie's hair is puffy because it's curly and thick and she hasn't yet tamed it.
Her pajamas proclaiming Aeropostale! to the world. Her shorts too short. "It's the style."
Rainey's hair too short, cut for Locks of Love, looking for all the world like someone just chopped it off - no layers, nothing gentle about it. Harsh. Straight. SHORT.
Both girls in glasses at the table tonight, though Maggie wears contacts these days.
Rainey's oversized Tshirt swallows her up, even though she's the tallest in her class of petite friends - Emily Bunch, Millie Mae, Heather, to name a few. Tinies.
Rainey can't just play cards, so I had her run upstairs and get her music. Now the IPod dog dances to the mix CD in the player. Her IPod ran out of juice.
We sing along - Rainey completely self-aware, Maggie alternating between free and self-conscious (only when Rainey gets louder to drown her out), me just singing like I sing. I'm too old to wonder if I'm good or not... or to care, anyway. I love the music too much to sit silent when it's on.
Spades is the game we play anytime we can talk Jennie into it, which is the past two nights.
Tonight she went, exhausted, to bed just as we began.
Maggie taught me Speed and Spit. My mom and I play Spit, but it's not the same game as Maggie's.
I taught the girls Egyptian Rat Screw and Rummy when I was here a few years ago. We play now again.
I slap the quickest.
Maggie cares the most.
Rainey cares more about singing, and her game suffers for it, but it improves the general experience of the evening.
We drink sodas and eat Jolly Ranchers. Every time I walk into the kitchen, I swipe a sugar snap pea from the colander where they sit, fresh from Mrs. Donellan's garden. The flavor is melodious with this evening, with summer, with the screen doors open and mosquitos coming in and our laughter as we realize no one will ever win this game.
I slap a mosquito on my arm.
A rose petal falls from blossom to table.
Trooper jingles in, looks at all of us, jingles back out.
This is my summer.