I was a little anxious as my in-laws backed out of my driveway after Memorial Day weekend. Most people would be anxious to see their in-laws coming but not me. I was anxious because tucked in the backseat they had Aubrey and Emma packed in to go stay on their Alabama farm for an entire week.
Aubrey, my 7-year-old, would be fine. She had started packing her bag as soon as her Grammie asked if they wanted to go. (Toothbrush, bathing suit, overalls, rain boots.) Emma, my 6-year-old, was hesitant. While Aubrey packed, Emma wrapped her spindly arms and legs around me like a spider monkey and whispered in my ear, “But I love you so much, Momma.”
“I’m not going to make you go, but I think you’ll be sad if you don’t,” I said.
Emma needed a little time away from me. Over the last few months, she has clung to me like glue, a result, no doubt of me resuming a full-time job and being out of pocket a little more. I had been praying for ways to build her independence and thought this might be an answer.
Emma was eventually sold when her Grammie said, “Oh, I hate I won’t be able to give you your birthday present this week!”
“Is it just a card?” Emma asked.
“When have I ever given you a CARD for your birthday?” Grammie said.
“OK, I’ll go.”
So I was anxious when they pulled out of the driveway. I wasn’t sure how Emma would fare but knew if she could keep it together she’d have the time of her life.
Pictures rolled in hourly via Facebook. Emma looked happy as she rode a horse with Aubrey behind her in the saddle. She grinned ear to ear as she rode beside her Pop Pete on his mule-drawn wagon. She looked pretty content blowing out the candles on her birthday cake that my sweet sisters-in-law got her for a joint birthday party with her cousins.
Emma called me almost every day and said, “Momma, I miss you really bad but I don’t want to come home yet.”
She’d tell me what they’d done that day: Made homemade raisin bread and chocolate chip cookies, rode four-wheelers and went swimming at the lake where she went down the biggest water slide she’d ever seen, played with puppies and jumped on the trampoline. As we’d wrap up the conversation I’d say, “Can I talk to Aubrey?”
“Aubrey, want to talk to Momma?” Emma would whisper.
“No.” Aubrey would say, not even bothering to come to the phone.
Clicking onto Facebook the following day, my heart almost came out of my mouth when I saw my 7-year-old holding a timber rattlesnake bigger than she is. It was obviously (hopefully) dead and people on the Internet freaked the freak out. Emma’s arms were folded across her chest and she was scowling as I’m sure I would be if I was forced to stand next to my sister while she handled a dead rattlesnake, but Aubrey was beaming.
Aubrey called me later that day. “Did you see that rattlesnake?”
“I did. I almost had a heart attack.”
“Yeah, I thought you might freak. It WAS dead, you know,” Aubrey said.
“I had hoped.”
When we picked the girls up last weekend, they had a few more freckles from being in the sun. They were a little bit blonder and a little bit taller. Emma was a year older. They had a few more inside jokes — their bond a little deeper than just a week before. They were a little wilder and a little bolder and their Momma was a little braver.
• Robin O’Bryant is a Greenwood author and blogger. Read her blog at www.robinschicks.com.
