Wendy Fontaine

I crawled into the bubble bath with my daughter tonight, just like I used to do when she was two years old. She usually grumbles when I tell her it’s time to get into the tub. She’s always in the middle of something, be right there, just one more minute of TV, Mom pleeeeease. Now that she’s seven, there are more exciting things to do than linger in the tub.
Not tonight, though. No, no. Tonight she ripped off her clothes and skipped to the bathroom, where the windows were already made steamy by the warm, welcoming water. The bubbles reached the porcelain edge, then dripped down to the floor like marshmallows melting over hot chocolate
I got in first, then her. She sat down on my lap like I was a big naked recliner. She leaned back as though my chest were her pillow.
We lay like that for quite some time. She forgot about that TV show, and I forgot about the to-do list that seems to only grow larger and more impossible. Our skin got pink and puckered while we lingered, pretending she was still two, pretending the world outside that bathroom door wasn’t waiting for us to emerge, pretending life would continue this slowly and sweetly forever.