"You said that last time you were going to look up 'clean,'" your dad joked.
Your mom left your room and didn't return until she'd watched a YouTube video on how to sign 'clean' in American Sign Language. Coming back, she sat Indian style on the rug in the middle of your floor (the rug being a red and orange and green quilt sewn by your Aunt Melinda).
"'Clean' is this," your mom said, and she slid the palms of her hands flatly together once. "Same as 'nice.'" If you do it twice -- your mom demonstrated -- it's 'clean up.'"
"And 'dirty,'" your mom continued, "goes like this." She put her hand under her chin, palm down, and wiggled her fingers. She mischievously grinned and darted her eyes to the right. Your mom loves that sign, since it is nearly identical, yet completely unrelated, to an "ugly face" she would do with her brother when she was a kid.
You turned around from your Yamaha portable keyboard in time to watch your dad imitate the "dirty" sign.
Something went wrong. You didn't like the sign. You squared your lower lip, your eyes welled into pools, and you reached for your mom. In your mom's arms you continued to wail, but your eyes also searched the floor of your room, over the quilt-rug, to the base of the room heater, over to the feet of your crib, to the bottom of your low-crouching chair, and back to the quilt-rug.
You were startled by the "dirty" face your dad had made, but once he'd stopped, you'd kept looking around the room for the face that startled you. It was gone.
