Beans and Apple Slices
“Are you a boy or a girl?” the kid in the elevator asked.
By late 2003, I had three daughters. Elizabeth was 2, smart and sparkly. The babies were identical girls: Melanie, our 5-pound sack of sugar, and Maria, bigger and bolder. Bright blue eyes and happy giggles and well-deserved confidence all around.
“Are they triplets?” the cashiers asked in 2006 and 2008 and 2010.
“No,” I always answered, “this one is 2 years older, but the twins are catching up!”
All three climbed into my lap in the evenings, chattering in excited detail about having had apple slices at snack time. About making dinosaurs from shoeboxes. That Elizabeth’s friend Stephanie brought a picture of her new cat to school. That Mrs. Marshall showed us how to plant beans today and we put the pots in our class’s window and someone gets to water them every other day that means not every day but you do one day and then not a day and then on the next day we have to water them and my day will be next Thursday!
I knew enough to love their stories, to savor their happy smells, to listen with radical acceptance, to be present in the sweet moments. I knew it wouldn’t last. I didn’t make the oft-lamented mistake of not appreciating my own children’s childhoods.
I did not know how to forge the armor I would need later, as childhood yielded to adolescence.
Yes, you have to go to school.
No, you can’t wear those shorts to school.
I don’t care who started it. All three of you need to stop.
Why does Elizabeth get to spend all her time at Stephanie’s house and why do we have to go to bed at 9:00 and I won’t eat the beans because you put ham in them and I decided yesterday that I am a vegan.
“Are you a boy or a girl?” the kid in the elevator asked in 2018.
“I’m a girl,” Elizabeth answered, but everyone’s confidence was gone. What had happened to the bright blue eyes and happy giggles? Had I given them all enough water? Enough sun? Maybe it should have been apples every day but dinosaurs every other day.
I’m the one babbling now, telling them the long versions of stories, aware they are not listening. How was school? Let’s plant some fall flowers this weekend. What kind of beans should we make tonight? I talked to Grandma today and she –
No response except in Maria’s tangled metaphors.
“School is a rotten burrito,” Maria declares.
“I’m a boy,” Paul announces in 2020.
“No, you’re not,” I think to myself.
“Okay,” I say aloud. “And I love you and the only thing that matters is if you’re happy.”
Maria stares. Paul stares. I realize that I have somehow answered incorrectly.
Had they needed a more dramatic outcome, as this long-simmering secret was finally revealed? Maybe shock from their mother would have played a necessary role. I imagine the three of them plotting, triplets scripting the correct version of the scene: Mother would reject Paul’s true identity, allowing Maria to spring to his defense. Which part is the rot and which part is the burrito? Melanie, well over 200 pounds and still the sweet one, wants everyone to be happy. No one is happy.
Another year later. My full-grown 20-something-year-old son slumps at the kitchen table with an apple.
I dare to ask if he is working on re-applying to college. I know full well he isn’t.
“Yes,” he says, with the first hint of the first smile in years. “Stephanie and I are going to get a cat and share an apartment. If it has a window for my plants, I’ll be fine.”
