Her son is 5. He is watching a children’s movie on tape. She smells his hair. It smells of skin and sweat but in a sweet way, the way that only children’s hair can smell. He is conscious of her sniffing his head but he does not complain. This will stop soon. He will become too big. He will be more demanding in becoming separate from her. That is fine. That is good. For now, she keeps parting his hair this way and that. Smelling his scalp. Being conscious of the moment. Trying to encode the moment. Package it. So that one day when they’re sitting across from each other, and he has become a completely separate being, she can unwrap this moment. Carefully. So the smell of memory does not evaporate. She can sit there, across from him and listen to the platitudes of the day. And remember the 5 year-old on this weekend day.
