Baby Me's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

The cottage became a pattern of smells and sounds. Wood smoke and salt water. Her father's voice calling out when the car turned onto the dirt road. The bundle's higher sounds mixing with his deeper ones. But inside, when the door opened, there were other voices too. The older woman's hands lifted her and carried her to a blue table already covered with bowls and plates. Steam rose from everything. The meat smell was rich and dark, nothing like milk. Potatoes sat white and smooth in one bowl. Green and orange pieces floated in another. She reached for the orange ones but the woman sat her down in a high seat with wooden bars around it. The bundle got hands. She got the bars. She pushed against them and made her wanting sound, the one that usually brought warm hands back. The woman touched her head once, then turned away to carry more food to the table. Her father's hands stayed on the bundle. After the eating, smoke smell filled the room. Sweet and sharp at once. An old man sat near the stone fireplace holding a curved wooden thing with patterns carved into it. He put it to his mouth and the smoke came out. She watched the smoke rise and curl toward the ceiling. Then he stood and took down something else from the wall, something with a long neck and strings. He tucked it under his chin. When he pulled another piece of wood across the strings, sound came out that made her whole body feel different. High and low at the same time. The woman picked up a smaller instrument and her voice joined the violin's cry. The sounds wrapped around each other like the smoke wrapped around the light from the fire. She stopped pushing at the bars. Her hands went still. The music moved through her the way her father's heartbeat used to when he held her close for a long time. She didn't need to touch it to feel it. The violin sang and the woman's voice answered and she realized something new: warm hands weren't the only way to not be alone. Sound could fill the empty spaces too. When the song ended and the woman finally lifted her from the high seat, she didn't make her wanting sound. She had already gotten something, just not what she'd been reaching for.