Fingerprints

I spent the whole day cleaning. Scrubbing toilets and vacuuming floors and dusting shelves—even the high ones that nobody would ever see unless they were really trying. I weeded the garden and re-organized the pantry. The lemony scent of Pine-Sol hangs triumphant in the air.

And yet. Everything within me aches for tiny fingerprints smudged across the glass dining room table top; for mismatched socks and stained bibs to fill the laundry basket. I wish for a living room overtaken by doll houses and firetrucks and baby swings. To mindlessly hum the soundtrack of Bluey or Peppa Pig as I wash yet another sippy cup. But I don't know the words.

The quiet is deafening. The terror of facing my own idle mind drives me to deep clean the refrigerator with the TV on full volume. Pushing my grief to the furthest recesses of my brain; unwilling to let it sneak its way back into the captain's chair today.

I take in the sight of my perfectly polished decor, expecting to feel some sense of accomplishment. A glass vase holding up dried flowers from my wedding bouquet. A ceramic mosaic of an ancient cypress tree from my trip to Israel. An oversized conch shell recovered from the depths of the Gulf Shore during our Honeymoon. Each one, a symbol of a beautiful season of life; a season before this one. Each one, breakable with one swift reach.

No, a child does not live here. They couldn't possibly. The evidence—or lack there of—is damning.

I long for the day when I can complain amiably of my dirty house; having played no part in making it so. To lament in comradery with other moms over the little hellions that have somehow come to rule our lives.

But maybe I won't.

Maybe if I am ever lucky enough to share this home with a child, I won't give a damn what they touch and break and make dirty. Maybe I will laugh as I chase them through the yard; their muddy footprints on my floors a story I'll never want to wash clean.

The proof of their mere existence the best gift of all.