It’s June now.   My body aches with work.   I soaked in the bath after the kids were in bed and Mark was out running errands and visiting with friends.  It was a sea of epsom salts, sweat and enough dirt to make it murky.

I had to get out though and the water tried to suction me back down when I stood up.

Gretta learned to ride a bike  yesterday.  I guess when you neglect a child’s bike riding desires for long enough she eventually finds her own way.  She had grampy lower the seat on Alberta’s bike so she could touch the ground.

That cheerful child called out to me every time she rode by the garden and I tried my best to always look up.

It’s hard to garden and take care of a baby at the same time.  It’s either the harsh sun or the black flies or the choking hazards that slow us down.  The girls take him with them a lot and my breasts grow heavy when it’s been too long; the tops of them show when I bend over to plant the carrots and they look like sixty year old florida breasts.  At least that’s what Mark calls them and he says it in a way that makes me know he likes them.  Too much sun and so much milk over the past ten years.

At night I lay under the weight of him, as he drapes his limbs over mine and rests his head on me.  His arm always rests on my stomach and the weight hurts.   And then I can’t take it anymore and I thrash him off and he tries again and I thrash again and he turns over and I am free.  I curl up behind him and drape my hand over his waist for five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds until he tucks it under his arm and we go to sleep.

In the morning there is a ring of dirt around that tub that I say I’ll scrub off but I don’t.