I am sitting on my kitchen floor tracing the grout between the tiles. Sunlight is coming in through the window and everything looks much lighter than it actually is. Dust motes float down in front of my eyes, and for a moment I am hypnotized. When I was a little girl I would sit on my grandmother's living room floor listening to records and being hypnotized by the particles of dust that would rain down in front of her picture window late in the afternoon. A squeal jostles seven year-old me back into thirty-two year-old me and I see my daughter raising her hands toward my face. She is beaming, still proud that she can stand up when I hold her hands. She is wearing a little patchwork dress that my old college roommate, forever the peacenik, sent us before Lila was even born.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant. It was winter, a gloomy, rainy persistent winter so unlike those of my youth. I lived deep in the South until I was twenty-nine, then migrated upward and to the West to start a life with my true love. My husband and I were spending a mutual day off together. We made love early in the morning, pressing together a little more purposely than usual in odd places like legs and necks, trying to stay warm until we forgot ourselves in each other. We got up, dressed, and walked down for coffee at one of our favorite shops. I had my eye on a new hardback book from my favorite author, and we spent a leisurely morning perusing aisle after aisle of books. One section was always a favorite, a reminder of a perfect moment we shared in the past. Every time we visited a certain bookstore, we would stop in the metaphysical aisle and test our mental powers on each other, knowing that each of us would always guess the correct number or predict the next color in the silly antiquated exercises of the old ESP books On the way home I stepped in a store to pick up marshmallows for cocoa. My husband, James, waited on the sidewalk visiting with our friend Beau we'd seen along the way. Without him there to make me feel sheepish, I tossed a pregnancy test onto the conveyor belt with my marshmallows and half-scampered to the counter to pay. My biological clock was either never installed or broken, but the last two years of bliss had made me curious about starting a family. I paid, thanked the clerk, and stashed the items in my messenger bag for investigation at a later time. James and I walked home with our friend in tow, planning a cozy winter meal and a foreign movie marathon. As we walked up the steps of our house, my 'painted lady'� dream cottage, two shades of lavender and surrounded by plants, I felt a little excited at the secret I had in my bag. James and Beau started dinner and I excused myself to the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bathtub for a minute, warm from my layers of clothes and giddy from anticipation of what I was about to do. I unswirled my scarf from around my neck and hung my big coat on the back of the bathroom door. With a do-or-die attitude that I only possess sometimes, I sat on the toilet and did my work. I held the test where I was supposed to, and squeezed my eyes shut, not quite knowing what I was hoping I'd see. James voice tumbled down our hallway, calling to make sure I was ok and to ask me if I wanted cheese on my dinner. I answered yes to being ok, no to wanting cheese, and opened my eyes to see the little stick nearly glowing with the assemblage of lines that meant something was growing inside of the belly I had so proudly worked into semi-flatness just a few years before. I jumped up, flew out of the bathroom, and jumped into James's arms with such force that we landed wedged onto the kitchen counter. Beau laughed and steadied himself on the corner of the kitchen table. I whispered my story in James' ear. He leaned back, smiled at me from his chin to his forehead, and swung me around his arms. The colors in the kitchen seemed brighter and the beat-up wood floor glowed with such fervor that I knew I was seeing things. James looked at Beau, perplexed by now that my exit from the bathroom should be such a celebrated affair, and shouted, 'we're having a baby!'� The next nine months proceeded with predictable joy, confusion, suspense, and exhaustion. Lila made her entrance that summer and had been the cause for celebration ever since. My life felt just about perfect.

All of these thoughts, inspired by Lila's giddy squeal and tiny hands on my face, retreat back into my mind as she toddles toward me. 'Your daddy will be home soon, my sweet, ' I say as I hold her waist so that she can balance on her as-of-yet mostly ornamental feet. I look around the room and feel a surge of gratitude and deep appreciation for the gritty floor under my feet, the Polaroids stuck to the fridge, and the absolute joy of my belongings mingling with James' things everywhere I look. I hear the door click behind us, and I know the path, the footsteps, the voice that meets us. His hand brushes over my head, smoothing my dark hair and stopping for a moment to cup the back of my head in a gesture whose familiarity has yet to diminish its power. James smiles at me and kisses me hello. He leans down and scoops Lila up for one of the full-body hugs she already has grown to love. I watch as my true love and my precious daughter spin around the room in the dust that mesmerized me minutes earlier. I understand how life works a little more. I know why my mother never ended up leaving, why my grandmother quietly pressed her lips together when my father would push a point. I see the sacrifice, love, and complete fulfillment that no one can tell you about until you are living it everyday. I see my dreams personified as I sit on the kitchen floor in a sunbeam, waiting for nothing and feeling everything.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...