A Year of Cousins

This is a year of new cousins.

One is thirty-five, and the other three point five months.

Thirty five had the face of a Twenty, was quiet and soft like white-brown unleavened bread. Weeks preceeding the meeting, I asked, what did Thirty Five look like? What did his voice sound like? How tall was he? Was he kind and nice? What subject did he teach? But I heard nothing, nothing, nothing.

Three Point Five months was raw, like a tiny loaf of meat. Weeks before the birth, I heard everything about her. How big she was going to be, how she was going to be a she, how she would have the eyes of her mother, how she would be brilliant and excel in school, how she would be taken along for this and that trip, how she was healthy, how she was unhealthy, how she liked Bon Jovi and had no patience for Beethoven. But when we met, she was nothing, nothing, nothing.

But I will love them both. In seven years, I will take Three Point Five to the library. In seven years, I will visit Thirty Five, and bob his-and-her second baby on my knee.