The Gift

Chapter 5
Mom and Dad

Chapter Description: The picture that hasn't been taken yet.

It takes Mom and Dad a few minutes to find their adult children. They will look back, as they try to make sense of what happened, and they will wish that they had come back sooner.

Mom had done as Lily had asked and taken Dad out for the morning, ostensibly to let him spend quality time in Lowe’s and pick out a new hammer drill. They go to Lowe’s but also to the mall, and Mom, conscious of the aftereffects of Dad’s radiation therapy, ensures he’s never far away from a restroom. She knows that her husband would be miserable, humiliated even to have a bladder accident in public.

The rain stops during the drive home. Glad to finally see the sun, they enter the house through the front door. They discover the living room in disarray, couch cushions everywhere.

Dad says softly, “Honey, someone’s been here. They might still be inside.” He goes to the foot of the stairs. “Call 9-1-1.”

Mom shakes her head. “No, honey, I think it was the kids. Although why they messed up the couch, I have no idea.”

“Lily and Lucas were here?”

“Well, they were supposed to still be here, actually…” Mom takes out her phone and calls Lily.

The ringing comes from the kitchen. Mom goes through and sees the coffee mugs, her favorite red scrapbook, and Lily’s iPhone, but no Lily or Lucas.

“Maybe they’re in their rooms?” Dad goes upstairs, and a few seconds later comes back down. “There’s a heck of a mess in the bathroom.” His face has a pinched expression. “And something else…”

Mom looks at him. “What?”

Dad hesitates. “There are clothes. Strange clothes. Like, baby clothes but big. And a terrible smell.”

“The kids aren’t up there?”

“No.”

It’s only then, when they go back to the kitchen to see if there are answers on Lily’s phone, with Mom feeling an anxious tightening in her chest, that they both here sounds from the backyard.

Shouting. Laughing.

Mom and Dad open the kitchen door and go onto the deck.

“Jesus,” Dad whispers. He stares at his two children, who are sitting together in the sunshine, naked and smeared in mud. “What the…” He turns to his wife and whispers urgently, “What’s going on?”

Mom tries to clarify. “They were going to take a photo. A special one, for your birthday.” She tries to put what she can see, and what she’s heard about upstairs, together to make sense. She thinks back to her scrapbook, how it was open at a certain page on the kitchen island. The onesie picture, the bath picture, and the mud picture.

It doesn’t explain why her grown children are behaving like feral toddlers.

It’s enough. It’s more than enough. She cups her hands around her mouth and calls to them. “Lucas! Lily!”

Both children look up at the mention of their names. They both smile, wave clumsily. And they both babble incoherently.

Mom leans on the deck railing. She can’t afford to faint. Whatever this is, she must stay in control.

“Come inside right now! This isn’t…” She wants to say ‘decent’. But isn’t there something funny about the expression on the kids’ faces? Something beyond their smiles, brightened by more than the sunshine?

Mom groans. She understands. A maternal instinct tells her that both her children, 18 years old and starting their college lives, have both returned to a time of mental innocence.

How? She has no idea.

But she stops shouting. She doesn’t bother trying to call them in from the deck.

She walks down the steps and across the grass that is still wet from all the rain.

“Honeys,” she says, reaching the pair. “Look at you both,” she says softly, crouching down to inspect the damage. “You’re both so muddy!”

“Moh-mee,” Lily says cheerfully, reaching up with both hands as if her mother is going to pick her up.

Mom takes her daughter’s hands, groans and says, “Honey. What did you do? What happened? You said you were gonna take a photo, but this is…” She blinks in helpless confusion. “This is something else.”

Lily grins in response. “Mehhh…methy!” She squeals, and she pulls her hands away and pats the puddle between her legs. “Mmm,” she mumbles, clearly delighted with her new game, and Mom watches in astonishment as her teenage daughter smears mud across her breasts and stomach.

“Boh!” Lucas shouts, winning Mom’s attention. “Boh, boh, boh!” He points with a clumsy hand and Mom looks over to see a striped beachball.

“That’s…your ball,” she says finally. She shrugs, and even giggles herself. Because either she giggles or cries, that’s her choice. “You found your ball,” she says, and her tone is that of someone addressing the youngest of children.

She is surprised at how easy it is to speak to her 18-year-old kids as if they were 18 months old instead, as if she just had to flick a switch and see them as toddlers again.

She’s not surprised by how much she loves them.

“When you said the kids were planning a surprise…”

Mom turns to find Dad at her side.

He raises his eyebrows. “I mean…”

Mom shakes her head. “This isn’t what Lily had planned. She can’t have meant for this to happen.”

“Well, they’re not acting,” says Dad. “I can see it in their eyes.” He crouches down, looks deeply into the faces of his children, and sees nothing but slack-jawed, glassy-eyed innocence.

Dad kisses his daughter, and then his son, on their muddy foreheads. “Quite the gift,” he whispers.

“This isn’t what Lily told me about,” says Mom. “I don’t know what happened.” She takes the kids hands, encourages them to their feet, and is glad to see that at least they can both stand up. “Is it temporary?” she asks, as if Lily and Lucas could even understand the question, never mind try to answer it.

“Who knows?” says Dad. “It’s like some kind of mental break to me. But why both of them?”

Mom says. “Maybe one cracked, and then the other. Couldn’t bear to leave their twin behind, you know?”

Dad nods. “They’ve always been so close.”

“Joined at the hip,” says Mom.

“Glued together with Elmer’s.”

Mom takes Lily and Dad takes Lucas, as they walk back across the grass.

Dad pulls out his phone as if he’s got someone he could call. Who? A doctor? A psychologist? There will be more immediate concerns. Like a fresh bath. Like clean diapers and pajamas.

Dad chuckles. “I’m half-tempted to take a picture.”

“What?”

“They look just like they did, all those years ago.” Dad chuckles again. “Remember the photo?”

Mom nods. Of course, she remembers. It was her idea, originally, for the kids to spend so much time playing in the yard as babies and toddlers. It was from an article in an issue of Parenting magazine.

She laughs. She can even remember the cover! A baby in a yellow dress, surrounded by the usual headlines:

Toddler Discipline that works (really!)

Is your family eating right (take our quiz)

But it was the story about mud-play that really hit home. What did the article claim?  

The open-ended nature of mud play is perfect for the developing brain.

Seventeen years ago, she was determined that her children should expand their experiences and become more adventurous. Seventeen years later, her children had left for university.

Today, they are back in the mud.

“There’s even the beachball,” says Dad wonderingly. “Thought we lost that years ago! Where’d they find it?”

Mom has no idea. She says drily, “Happy Birthday, Daddy.”

Dad snorts. “Thanks, Mommy.”

They reach the steps and take a moment, parents and children gazing back across they yard.

“Boh,” Lucas says, pointing back at the beachball.

Dad nods. “You can play ball later, son.” He pats the boy’s shoulder. “When it’s dry. When you’re all cleaned up.”

Lucas nods in agreement, as if he understands his father’s words.

“You too, Lily loo,” Dad tells his daughter. “Bath time for princesses.”

Lily smiles around her fingers, drooling down her chin.

Mom sighs. “You’re gonna need your Binky, aren’t you.” She looks to Dad. “Remember how she loves her Binky?”

Mom squeezes Lily’s hand and is rewarded with a slow-witted giggle from her daughter, the teenage girl curling her toes into a fresh mud puddle and sucking harder on her fingers.

Is this for today, or is this for good?

Mom kisses her children, and she remembers the what the Parenting magazine article promised.

Mud is a learning material. Mud stimulates expressive language and critical thinking.

She looks at both of her children. They could do with plenty of mud.

And they will also adult-sized clothing and diapers – Lily had said she found a store on Etsy for the photo-shoot, so perhaps they can start there.

But first, comes the bath, with plenty of bubbles. And then a simple snack, warm milk, and then lovely cuddles, followed by a sleepy story for naptime.

And the rest?

Mom puts her arms around her children, not caring about the mud on her clothes. She cuddles her children.

They can work out the rest tomorrow.

THE END 

This story was imagined and commissioned by Anonymous.

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