Pussy Willows

Snap!

I’m pulled from a daydream.

On the tippy-toes of one tiny foot, Iggy reaches for the long fingers of the willow tree that hangs over the old sloped rock steps. She teeters, nearly falling, and recovers. Throwing her body across the path she lands one tiny hand on a strong branch above her head. She twists the desired branch at the end of her nose around and around until it gives away.

“Mom!? Mom!” Iggy calls out, “I got some baby bunnies.”

“Oh, ya?” I stir a little red water spider with my submerged big toe.

She clatters over the uneven weather-stained dock boards in her scruffy red rubber boots, throws a band-aid patched knee over the edge before springing off recklessly to the rock beside me. She ricochets off my side, jogging my foot and the little red spider disappears into the abyss. Her little scratched up four year old fingers hold tightly to one narrow twig with two little rows of pussy willows. She steadies herself and waves them with great pride, two inches from my nose. I open my arm and she flops herself next to me, hip to hip. I slip the boots off her feet just before she submerges them.

“I am going to try to grow them again this year.”

“Grow?”

“Yes, into big bunnies.”

“Okay, should we put them in water?”

“No. We tried that last year and they died.”

“How do you think we should grow them then?”

“I think like Jules does with the baby chicks.”

“With a heat lamp?”

“Ya.”

“Okay, are you going to pick them off the branch first?”

“No. I think they still need the branch.”

“Oh ya? We don’t have a heat lamp here but they would be pretty snug in a basket in the sunny porch.”

“Okay.”

She hops up the rocks and abandons her boots, running barefoot across the dusty ground to the cabin. The door slams. Little feet stomp sandy paths through each room in the cabin.

I settle back into my quiet moment by the calm water but it is short lived because my coffee has cooled. I pull myself onto the dock and dump it into the rock garden.

I can tell everywhere Iggy visited inside. I guess it is my fault for taking her boots off but I wanted to save them from filling with water. Her feet would have ended up in the lake regardless of whether they were on or off.

I follow her munchkin voice into the screened porch where she spoons her basket of bunnies on the hard plank floor. She is sharing the secret of her cliff top wolf twin. My knee hits the side of the chair.

“Shhhh...you may wake them up.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this endeavor, waking the bunnies?”

“Have you ever seen bunnies this small?”

“Well, no.”

“If they wake now, they will die, Mom. Tiny babies need time to grow big and strong.”

“Okay, then.” I agree as I grab my book from the ledge and cuddle into the cushions of the daybed to bask in the sun. She hums quietly and eventually soothes me to sleep too.

I wake and sit straight up with the automatic panic ingrained in all moms. Iggy is safe, still in her momma bunny position next to her basket. I pat her side, grab my fallen book to continue where I left off. I glance down at the basket. It must be the sun in my eyes because the bunnies look bigger.

“Iggy, did you pick new bunnies?”

“No.”

“Are you sure, they look like the ones from the poplar tree? They are chubby little bunnies.”

“No, they are not poplar bunnies, they are willow bunnies.”

“They are still the ones from beside the path?”

“Ya.”

She holds them loose in her hands and rocks them back and forth humming Little Rabbit Foofoo.

“I thought you were not going to pick them?”

“I didn’t. They just let go.”

“Let go?”

“Ya,” She replies, cradling them to her chest. “I want them to listen to my heartbeat so they know that I am their mother.”

I slip down to the floor and cuddle my dear little mommy to be into my shoulder. I sing Little Rabbit Foofoo just above a whisper. We rock back and forth with my chin on the top of her head. She smells like dust and pine. I drop the words as I fade out again with the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze off the water. Iggy hums where I left off.

She stops mid verse and gently coos to her babies, “Hello Robert. Hello Dorothy. Hello Henry, and Lana…..” and then she giggles, “Hey, that tickles.”

I am jolted awake. Tickles?!

Pussy Willows