“Ooooh, look at this!” Young Mom exclaims, very loudly, shaking a rattle in Kaia’s face. “Look at this!” She shoves a baby doll in Kaia’s face. Kaia presses her small hand into the cake that is presented to her and watches it ooze between her fingers in fascination.
“Grandma, are yousmoking?” Honeysuckle Lou exclaims.
“That’s a candy cigarette.”
“There’s smoke coming out of it.”
“Look! You’re smoking right in front of him!” Octavian gestures to a small Felix, head buzzed, front teeth overlarge, who’s helpfully trying to persuade Kaia to play with her toys as a stream of smoke wafts directly into his eyes. Young Mom thanks him and calls him a big helper while Young Dad, who’s doing the recording this time, tells him to back off and let Kaia play with whatever she wants. Felix is standing on the back of a chair, hopping up and down excitedly. Young Dad tells him to cut it out, which he does. Present-Day Dad grimaces.
“This is why I have asthma now,” Felix informs Honeysuckle Lou. “Grandma, I can’t believe you blew smoke right into my face.”
“It was a different time.”
“Mom, you look hot,” Athena says. It’s true. Mom’s got short, flippy blond hair in this video, very sleek, with a black turtleneck and deep red lipstick.
“That’s weird,” one of her kids replies. “You can’t call your mom hot.”
“Why not? I’myourmom, and I’m hot.”
Mom sighs. “Iwashot, wasn’t I.”
Dad tugs her to him. “You’ve always been hot and always will be.” I notice he’s exaggerating his accent. Mom smiles, snuggling against his side.
A small voice in the video pipes up. “Can I come out of time-out now?” And the camera swerves to land, predictably, on a little girl with black hair and a pink Popsicle stain around her mouth, perfectly dry but wearing a bathing suit. She’s sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, hands under her bottom, heels thumping the floor.
“Are you going to be good?” Young Dad asks.
“No.”
“Then you can’t come out of time-out.”
“See, she’s always been a gremlin,” Athena reminds us.
“It’s why we love her,” Kaia rejoins, reaching across Hall to grasp my hand for a few seconds. She pulls away, smiling.
Young Felix walks over and hugs little Bettie, gives her the baby doll Kaia doesn’t want anything to do with, and calls her his little buddy. We all go, “Awwww!”
The video goes black again and refocuses on a new scene. It’s my birthday.
“Do you remember that clock?” Mom asks Dad now, pointing at a clock on the wall in the background. “We lost that in the move to Fresno, didn’t we?”
“I thought we gave it away.”
“I wouldn’t have given that away. I miss that clock.”
“Look at that wallpaper. That is theugliestwallpaper. I always hated it.”
“I loved that wallpaper!” Mom gapes at him as though he’s insulting one of their children. They continue to notice old stuff in the background that nobody else cares about, wondering whereit’s all disappeared to. All the while, little Bettie is tearing into her presents with the help of Felix, who hands her each one and offers to get them out of their packaging. Young Dad tells him, a little snappishly, to back off and let little Bettie open her presents by herself. Present-Day Dad grimaces again.
“I’m sorry, Felix.”
“I’ll let you help open my presents on Christmas, if you want,” I offer.
“Thankyou,” he replies, with a haughty expression for our father. “It’s about time I’m appreciated.”
I’m watching my miniature self, how easy it is for her and her siblings to hug each other, to be in each other’s space. Tangling up together like a rat king, play-fighting and real-fighting and forgiving so quickly, arms around shoulders, holding hands. Someone always hugging somebody else. I find myself tearing up over it, but when Sean rudely points this out, I scowl and say I’m only misty-eyed because I miss what it was like to not know him.
Mom’s misty-eyed, too, because she and Dad were separated at the time this particular video was recorded, coming together only for our birthdays and holidays. Watching herself struggle, even though it’s impossible for the rest of us to tell she was struggling, is dredging up some bad memories. Grandma’s misty-eyed because she doesn’t know what happened to the ruby earrings she sees her younger self wearing and accuses her dead mother of stealing them. Most of the kids have left the room by now, even though they were promised this would be a captivating stroll down memory lane, and they call us narcissists for watching ourselves with so much enthusiasm. Peach Tree cries because she’s not in the videos with us.“I’m left out of everything! It’s not fair!”
