“Gramma, you got a baby in your tummy?”
My first impulse was to stand abruptly and spill the kid unceremoniously to the floor while sucking in the gut his chubby fingers were prodding. Fortunately, grandmotherly instincts prevailed and I buried my face and laughter in his cinnamon colored, fresh-from-the-bath scented curls, likely inherited from his father, whomever that might be. My daughter either didn’t know or wouldn’t say. Faith was like that. Too much like my mother. A so-called “free spirit.” Read: “totally irresponsible.”
“No, Eddie. Of course I don’t. Why would you think that?”
“You’re fat in the tummy, like Jimmy’s mommy.”
I was, was I? I looked down. Shit! I was, especially when I was sitting. Jimmy’s mommy was hatching her second baby. “I’m a gramma. Grammas don’t get babies in their tummies.” They just get old and start to get fat. I didn’t tell him that because to my mind, at forty-three, I don’t exactly qualify for “old”, but was definitely beginning to put on a bit of pork. I’d noticed it too, but chosen to ignore it. But . . . if a three-year-old noticed, there was no point in denying it to myself any longer. Either I was getting chubby or . . . Oh my God! What if . . .?
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