three.

She wipes the counter with the once-white wash cloth, the one that has acquired some smudgy, dark patches, even though she washes it in earth-friendly non-chlorine bleach. She says, look, honey, this is the wash cloth they sent home with us from the hospital after you were born, although they didn't realize momma was sort of accidentally stealing it. You say, oh, mommy?, Why you dood that? And she shakes her head, laughing a little under her breath as she wipes quickly and with sure strokes. You look quizzically at the cloth, for, while you understand "hospital," you only know one thing for certain, that is, that you have always been here. You have always stood, with your sensitive skin and sensitive soul, in this place, this now, and the thing she speaks of, the time before you, it is incomprehensible.

You run quickly out the back door and into the streaming sunshine, gliding through it, laughing, chasing the dog, your speed a lightning-quick accusation to her that the moments escape so quickly and she has no more capacity for their importance than a moth does the lurid, shimmering glow of the lantern's beams.

She puts down the cloth and runs after you just for a moment, chasing your little, sweet, precious body down as you scramble away from her, your laughter afloat, wafting to her like pollen, and she catches you up and kisses you abundantly on the full, soft cheek, her heart awash with the perfect beauty of the feeling of your skin, of your body, your lengthening body, and her scaled-down form as it grows leaner and less taut while yours sharpens, she rests you on the grass and dashes the quick-form'd tears from beneath her grinning lids, absorbing it.

This is your time, now.