Morning in Marin

I wake up in the ball-chair, in the light. Sunshine washes out the furniture, the frosted floor. The walls. The whole space is sun-white.

The TV is on, on silent, and I hear water spurt-spray somewhere—a shower? The ocean is close—I can smell salt-sand. I unball my body, stand. Walk in the light.

Walk upstairs. “Collin?”

The water-spurt fades. Lily is talking—a child-exclamation, thrilled and high. I open the door, lean into the room. Lily sits on the bed, naked and grinning. Bouncing. Collin holds her clothes.

“Hi,” I say, smile.

“Morning honey,” Collin says.

Lily stops bouncing, watches me.

“How’d you sleep?” Collin asks. It’s seven-thirty. The phone rings.

“It’s so pretty here. I—”

Collin holds a finger to his lips. “Hello…hi honey, how was…oh, yeah, been wonderful. Lily says ‘hi.’ ”

“Hi,” Lily says. “Hi hi hi hi hi hii hiiii!” Collin holds a finger to his lips.

“I talk! I will talk to Mommy!”

“She’s only half-up, honey,” Collin tells his wife.

“I am up!” Lily says. She leans into the phone. “I am up!” Collin gives her the phone, looks at me.

“I—why that Mommy here, Mommy?...She’s here.”

The Mommy speaks, at least a minute.

“Where are you?”

The Mommy speaks—I can hear ‘T’s and ‘P’s. Collin takes the phone. “Honey, talk to you tonight, okay?”

A ‘T.’

“Love you, honey.”

A ‘T.’ Love you too?

Collin hangs up. “What did Mommy say, Lily?”

Lily is watching me. “Who’s that Mommy, Daddy?”

“Aspen’s not a Mommy, honey.” He turns to the wall. “Aspen is a babysitter.”

I look at him; his hip faces me. He turns, slips on Lily’s underpants—pastel yellow and tiny.

Lily watches me. She doesn’t blink.

I walk out the room, down the stairs—consider leaving. There’s flour on the glass-sheet shelf, sugar. Butter in the fridge.

The sun out the window-wall is high now, no longer blinding. The ocean smells like summer dirt—dry flowers.

I make pancakes.