Quiet Time

I have devised the plan all afternoon. I am going to sneak away from the kids, quietly, in bare feet, to the bathroom, shut the door, draw a bath hot enough to hang on the edge of pain, and melt away worries and fret, like the dissolving in water layers of thin paper. I have so few moments like this, this hope of quiet and peace. I have made the preparations. It is like devising a plan for an intricate trip; I have fed the children and laid out clothes for the next day, and packed lunches. I have inched by Ethan's room without him hearing me (sometimes I think he recognizes the the sound of my footsteps by his door, and picks his tousled head off the pillow to cry for my attention). I have evaded Amelia, who has retreated to her room and her Barbies. I am in the bathroom now, the water runs into the tub, sending spirals of white steam into the air. It is deliciously quiet, except for water. I pull out my robe, a towel, and lay them across the tub, and it is so close, this moment of immersing into the water, of washing away, of pealing away emotion and tension. I have been so careful to find myself alone. I want to be alone. I deserve to be alone.

Emma does not feel this way. She comes into the bathroom as I am putting my feet in the water.

"Mommy is taking a bath," I say, delicately, like I am going to soon break this fragile quietness of steam and lapping water. I lower myself into the tub, but Emma comes further into the bathroom.

"Honey, mommy is taking a bath." This time it is a little sterner. I am demanding my privacy. I need this solitude right now like I need air to breathe. It is that essential to me.

Emma sits up on the side of the tub. She clearly is ignoring my comments. I am about to tell her to leave again, to tell her to mind me, that I am her mother, but she speaks, with her gaze turned away from me.

"Mommy," she says, "I need to ask you something." I see her profile, see her long eyelashes that curl up in an astonishing way; they are way too long to be real, but they are, and they have been astonishing since the day she was born; the doctor who delivered her commented on her eyelashes long before he commented on her being a girl.

"What is heaven like?"

Emma has always jolted me out of my false reverie, of this seeking of comfort that I think I can find in myself. She puts her child hand on my shoulder and jerks me back to her world of wonder and questions, questions that even adults don't know the answers to, but here she is, age seven, searching for answers she thinks are simple enough to come from within a steam filled bathroom, answers she thinks her mother knows.

She does not realize that most of the time, my hands are out in the dark, feeling my way along.

"I don't know, " I say. The water ripples and makes the sound the ripples make, of tiny waves slapping against themselves, as I shift my legs in the bathtub. What do I know of heaven? Have I thought about it really? I know I see light, light abounding everywhere, breaking free from the center of atoms and exploding, covering everything like ash. But what else is there? I consider this before I answer her, knowing that this might shape her heaven image for years and years. "I think it is whatever makes you happy."

"I think dogs live there. I think Jesus plays with them."

"I think you're right," I say. "And I think we will live in a big house."

"Will you play with me in heaven?"

Emma continues to balance on the lip of the tub. She runs her hand over the towel. She is waiting on my answer, which to her is all the truth she needs.

"Honey, of course I will play with you."

"And will Daddy be there? And Ethan and Amelia?" She continues to list all her family members that are important to her, that surround her in this life. She is concerned about everyone. She leaves no one out.

"Yes, eventually they will all be there."

Emma smiles. She is losing her baby teeth, and her smile is spacey and wide, and a perfect reflection of her happiness. There is a light bulb inside her, and it has been flipped on, and the light of it surrounds her.

"I think heaven sounds awesomest of all."

Emma is so articulate in the simplicity her child mind assigns to idea of heaven. I am reminded that little children see so clearly things that adults struggle to make sense of.

My bath ends soon after my conversation with Emma. She has carried out of the bathroom a picture in her head of the Heavenly Father playing with pets, and of a big field full of her family. My picture of heaven is still pierced through with light and life. And I know my grandfather is there picking the guitar.