The first day of his arrival, the little boy presses his cheek against mine and digs his chubby fingers into the crooks of my skin. He stumbles away from me and into his mother’s outstretched arms with his pointer finger encased in his mouth. I wish I could twine around him like her arms do, to comfort him and love him. Instead, I stand straight and tall as I am meant to do.
    I wait and wait, and finally he returns with a little girl who has bowl-like cheeks and thick-lashed eyes. They act out a story their teacher told them by pressing their faces against me and playing at star crossed lovers.
      “Oh, Thisbe, Thisbe,” my little boy speaks against me, “Where art thou?”
      He mouths for his playmate to respond and she hurries to please.
      “I can hear you,” the girls trills.
      “No, no! You speak into the wall, like this.”
      My little boy insists on a correct execution of the old tale. They get as far as, “My father will not let me see you,” before the girl nudges him and they fall into a scuffle of chubby fingers and rolling bodies, intent on rubbing dirt into their jeans. The predictable accident arrives that forces them to run back into the house, and the little boy’s mother dials the little girl’s mother.
      “It wasn’t her fault at all. Yes, they were just having some fun, and things got out of hand. We’d love for her to come again.”
      Soon the years of play station and fractions arrive, and the little girl has become tall and thin like the lilies in the garden. Freckles run from her forehead all the way down to the bony knobs of her shoulders, and she reveals them with strapless shirts. They are too mature for her, until one day they are not, and my little boy notices the change.
      I am there for their first kiss, awkward and puckered, and for their marriage kiss, polite and brief for the sake of five rows of guests.
      The next day, or so it seems, my little boy cradles his own little boy in his arms, and he does not belong to me anymore. I will wait for this new baby to walk towards me and put his cheek against mine, and perhaps one day I will watch him play Pyramus and Thisbe, and witness his first kiss.