Always Have the Red?

Remember when Birdie sucked her two fingers like Ted did?

The boys were at a Twins game last night, so the Birds had dinner (macaroni and cheese and watermelon) al fresco on the front stoop so they could watch the world go by. After they'd been sitting there a while, Birdie asked Julie if she--Birdie--would always have the red on her leg. Julie said she would, that it was her birth mark. Clara asked if other people had birth marks and Julie said they sure did, but that they came in all different shapes and sizes and colors and they were unique--fancy for no two alike. And then Birdie asked if you could get one by touching it.

Julie just said no, that you had to be born with one. But her heart squeezed, wondering what might have been said to Our Birdie to prompt the question. Maybe nothing. One hopes such questions just came out of the blue, the way questions do when one is four. But kids are kids--all different, but for a long, long while trying so hard to be anything but, and ridiculing those that don't confirm to the ideal of the moment.

There are times we're asked, "What's that?" By now, it always takes Julie a beat or two to catch up to what the person asking is seeing, because she doesn't notice the birth mark anymore. When she asks herself what leg Birdie's birth mark is on, she has to flip through pictures she's saved in her heart--Birdie lying on the big bed as a baby, and was it on the leg visible, or no? Birdie learning to walk, her chubby legs swinging, clumsy; May, so she was in shorts--right or left?  That sort of thing.

Then that was that. The Birds ate their watermelon. Beautiful night for watermelon with a beautiful little girl, with a birth mark.