Shootin’ the Breeze

Mi Casa, 8 p.m.

I am hunched over the Mac preparing a memo for my annual assessment. Just one of those events I insist on shitting bricks for as a matter of over-achieving principle. I’ve never had a bad assessment, my boss is only the most fabulous boss on earth, yet there I am on the eve of A-day, nerves-a-grated and knickers in a twist. (Yeah, thats really not as hot as you’d imagine, even though I have very nice knickers thanksverymuch)

Arvind, who still insists on making up his own homework (because neither school nor parents will give him any) is making up sums (“Whats a google plus thousand, Mamma?”) and trying kindle an interest in science in his ignorant mother (“Do you want me to draw the insides of a butterfly for you?”) You get the drift.

I do the usual nodding, hmming and hawing that all parents are familiar with, but all of a sudden there he is, his face just a few inches from mine.

“You look tired, Mamma. Do you want me to give you a massage?”

Without warning, tears spring to my eyes and I’m too overwhelmed to respond. For weeks, I can go around thinking that Arvind can’t/won’t hear a word I say or that he is far too lost in his own world and thoughts – till he displays the full extent of his empathy and perception and knocks his ole Ma over with a feather.

His tiny, gentle palms rub my shoulders and caress my back. Its heavenly is what it is. His feathery touch rubbing his mother’s aches away. I sigh and lean into my lille mann.

” One day, sweetheart, you’re going to make some woman really, really happy.”

“No, I won’t,” he snorts, “I’ll want to play Wii all day and that’ll make her mad as hell!”

Aaaaand….he’s back.

My babies hand in hand