I was manically picking through a menagerie of stuffed animals, trying to fashion a costume. “There they are,” I said, pinning three teddy bears to my dress with diaper pins. I donned an old blonde, curly wig and emerged as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
My husband had just come home and asked if I was up for a Halloween party. I was submersed in the feeding-sleeping-pooping schedule of new motherhood. “Are you kidding?” I said, already jumping in the shower. “I’d go to a dog fight! Be ready in ten.” After pumping breast milk for the babysitter, I kicked a bouncy seat out of my way and dashed out the door.
I was feeling really proud of myself for my ingenuity when my bears and I were suddenly faces to face with my old flame. This was the man/boy with whom I had discovered love, intimacy, and, ultimately, heartbreak. I caught his gaze and stopped breathing for just a moment. “Oh, it’s you ... hi!” I nervously giggled, brushing the wig’s blond tendrils away from my eyes and straightening the animal trio around my midriff. “Goldilocks ...” I shrugged, looking awkwardly down at my stuffed friends. “Do these bears make me look fat?”
“Very clever,” he chuckled. “I’m an Irish seven-course meal,” he explained, patting the spud in his breast pocket and raising a clutch of beer cans. “A six-pack and a potato.” We embraced awkwardly, straining over the teddy bears and my oversized bosoms. I whiffed his Old Spice scent and was transported to high school, long distance college phone calls, make out sessions, and long, tearful conversations about what the future would hold. And now, there we were ... in our future. Life had happened. I was happily married, a mother. He was a grown-up man, living in Boston.
We briefly caught up on this and that, all the while my mind going back to that awful breakup years ago. About a decade had passed at that point, and a few boyfriends too. I longed to rehash, to ask forgiveness, to explain, but it was getting late, and I had to go home to pump again. “I’ve gotta go relieve my babysitter,” I said, dabbing my eyes with a soft brown teddy bear ear. “Take care,” we both said, giving soft hugs.
Back home, removing my wig, my dress, my teddy bears, I was still weepy with emotion, postpartum hormones, embarrassment. “Good night, Goldilocks,” my husband said turning out the lights. “You looked great.” Falling asleep, I reflected on time passing, men dated, choices made, and smiled, thinking to myself, “One guy had been too soft, the next one too firm, but this one here ... he’s just right.” |
