Straight No Chaser

Kailani is So Big

we were supposed to get ice and snow, a day of no class. instead we got thirty-two point five degree temperatures and cold, cold rain. and class. and my roommate is sick and hocchhhhhhhhing up a collection that would put anything aaron ever produced to shame. i want to leave. and i'm going to.

*****

The other thing she found during the scavenger hunt, she hid in the hollow of a tree by the spring. Today, after Kailani's bath, she takes it out.

"Guess what today is, baby," she says, keeping it tucked under one arm as she dries Kai off, belt sander-style. "Father's Day!"

"Yay!"

*

He's still asleep on the beach when they get back, so they take the opportunity to wrap it in the remnants of the cardboard from the Post-It package. Shannon sets it down in the sand and spells his name out, in front of it, using the smoothed broken purple-and-white edges of conch shells.

Kailani wants to play with them, the shells, and destroys the A several times before Shannon gets tired of fixing it. "Okay, babe," she says resolutely. "Let's do something else until Daddy wakes up."

*

She uses Aaron's pocketknife to cut a notch in a palm tree on the south beach, just above the crown of Kai's head. Similar notches descend the trunk. "Wowwwwwww," exhales Shannon dramatically, to Kailani's bouncing delight. "Kailani is SO big!"

"Ha-ha!" shrieks Kailani, Aaron-like.

It becomes a lesson in sentence structure, borrowed from, she thinks, a Jeanne Marie Laskas column read long ago. "Kailani is so big," she repeats, sliding the knife into its sheath.

"Sooooo big."

"Kailani is so big." Subject, predicate. She hates being reminded, every day, that she has no idea where this kid should be, verbally. "What else is so big?" She looks meaningfully at the tree, mouths its name.

"So big."

Shannon sighs and hoists Kai up onto her hip. "Okay. Let's go wake Daddy."

*

The passenger has fallen asleep by the time they get back to Aaron, who is rising slowly into push-up position, barely awake. "Wait," says Shannon, lifting a finger. She doesn't want him to see his gift yet, has something else for him first.

She runs inside and tucks the baby in, comes back out and straddles Aaron's lower back, planting her knees on either side of his hips. "Mmm," he says, letting his eyes fall shut again. "She asleep?"

"Yep. It's Father's Day."

He emits an impressed snort, muffled against his sandy forearm. "You and that calendar."

She presses her thumbs into the hollows between his spine and his shoulder blades, and begins kneading gently. He groans. "Well, somebody has to keep track," she murmurs, moving in a line down the length of his spinal column. "Otherwise we'd never be able to time stuff like--"

A bubble pops just as her lower abdomen brushes his side, and he nods his understanding. "Speaking of which," he says, "I think you've gained more weight this time."

She gives his shoulder a pinch. "Thanks."

He reaches behind, tickles the curve of her belly with one finger. "Good thing, remember? We worried, last time."

She thinks of something and lifts up a bit, transferring her weight to the anchors of her own legs. "I'm not hurting you, am I? Too much weight?"

He laughs out loud. "I could handle you at one-oh-five, but now, at a whopping one-twelve, you are, yes, entirely too much of a burden for my petite frame. Please. Sit back down and finish what you started."

She echoes his laugh and complies.

*

Half an hour later, she lifts her tired hands away. "All done," she yawns.

Beneath her, he deftly rotates his body halfway around, still between but with his back to the sand. "What now?" he asks softly, taking her hands, lifting an eyebrow.

"Well, I--"

"Mommy?" Kailani's voice, sweet and plaintive, if poorly timed.

Shannon giggles, gives Aaron a little tug and stands. "Come on out, baby, let's give Daddy his present!"

*

He doesn't notice, sits on and subsequently destroys the A, stretching out his legs so that the other letters follow. "Ow," he mutters, kicking them aside. "So, what's in the box, Kai?"

She scrambles up into his lap and shoves her toes into the box's reattached seams, grinning and watching his face for approval as she tears it open.

"Thanks, sweetie," says Shannon, reaching down to lift her away. "Let Daddy do it himself, okay?"

"Something breakable?" he guesses, peeling back layers of wrinkled cardboard. He reaches in and lifts it out, and his jaw drops.

Kai squirms in Shannon's arms, trying to get down. "Daddy!" she wails, indignant.

"I didn't test it," Shannon forewarns, "because I didn't want to waste one, in case it works. But it was wrapped up in bubble wrap, in sort of a box within a box, and so I figured there was a chance--"

"Say cheese!" directs Aaron, lifting the camera to eye level.

"Teese," whimpers Kailani without smiling.

He presses the shutter, there's a loud CLICK! and three hands immediately reach for the black and white rectangle that shoots out from the front.

Aaron tackles them both with his hug.

*

Also in the box are flashcubes and a giant pack of film, a thousand exposures in total, of which they decide to use five, now. The rest they'll ration accordingly.

The first comes out well, perfectly capturing Kai's exaggerated frown, Shannon's patient smile. Squirmteese, Aaron scrawls along the bottom.

Then another of the girls, of Shannon dipping Kailani, tango-style. He calls this one The Return of the Smile.

Kailani splashing naked in the shallow waves. Mermaid.

Closeup of a kiss, taken at arm's length. The Sailor and the Siren.

*

"One last," he says, inserting a flashcube. The sun is setting.

"The shelter?" suggests Shannon. "For posterity?"

Kailani rubs her eyes.

Aaron and Shannon look around, seeking out inspiration. Wind picks up the hem of Shannon's blue sarong; she reaches down to secure it, then lifts her hands to adjust the placement of her stretchy white tube top. Still looking around, she lifts it up a bit, slides her palms in slow circles along the sides of her belly.

Kailani watches, and says, very clearly, "Mommy is so big."

Aaron snaps the shot before Shannon can protest.

Kai's utterance will be the subtitle, he decides. First he prints, very carefully, Beautiful.