"I have an entire person in here. Like, an entirely cooked person."
Both of them laying on the couch, your dad places his foot on your mom's belly. It's hot to the touch. You arch your neck, pushing your head against his instep. Your hand reaches out, and there's some kind of high five exchanged between your fingers and your dad's squared off toes. Sometimes you release a flurry of rapidfire movements, like you're batting an eyelash, but with your leg. And you get the hiccups daily now, your lungs prepped to draw their first breath.
To your mom and dad, raising a child is certainly a mammoth undertaking. But one spread out over the course of years, decades. What makes them anxious -- perhaps even tapping into something like anxiety -- is the thought of "Labor Day," the day you decide to join them out here.
The bag is nearly ready, tooled with toiletries and boardgames. Plus some writing paper. When your dad was a boy, and a long car trip was in order, your grandma Claire and grandpa Dale made sure your dad brought along paper. Your dad would turn around in the Chevy pickup's extended cab, pull down the bucket seats, and draw, using the bucket seats like an architect's desk equipped with seatbelts.
