While They Color

“Hadley?”

“Hmm?”

“Hadley?”

“Hmm?”

“Hadley?”

“Harper. What?”

“How much do you love me?”

Lately, Harper’s been telling us before she goes to bed, “I love you more than you love me.” She says it in a sing-song, silly voice that I’ve come to learn she uses when she’s feeling unsure about something.  These days, she’s interested in measuring love, and nobody in the family can really satisfy her when she asks how much we love her.  Hadley included.

Hadley’s working on a Superhero book when Harper asks the question. Her head rests on her left hand while she works on Pencilman. He can stab you with his pencil point, and also write messages that are real or fake to confuse villains. She tells Harper, “I love you a lot,” while she works on her heroes.

Scribbleman can be whatever he wants. He doesn’t need pencils with erasers because he’s not afraid to make mistakes. “He turns mistakes into something,” Hadley says.

Dotman throws stuff. “Does he throw his dots?” I ask Hadley. “No, he does not throw his dots. He just throws stuff,” Hadley tells me.

“I love you over the moon,” Harper tells Hadley.  “And the stars.” She’s coloring a page with cars all over it.  “And Jupiter!”

“Hadley?”

“Mmm hmm?”

“Hadley?”

“Yeah?”

“Hadley?”

“Harper, I’ve been saying ‘What.'”

“How big is the universe?”

“It’s immeasurable, Harper. It’s expanding as we speak.”

Harper picks up a celery stick and studies it for a moment. She puts it down on the plate and takes a bite of her sandwich. “So,” she says, chewing,”the universe is growing because we are talking?”

“No, no, Harper,” Hadley takes her hand away from her head and leans towards her. Things are getting interesting now. “The universe isn’t growing because we are talking. It’s growing as we are talking.”

“Mmmm,” Harper says. She walks over to the bulletin board and takes down the calendar. “This needs decorating,” she says and runs upstairs to get supplies: stamps, washi tape, more markers. She brings them all down using her t-shirt as a basket.

“June is the paradise month,” she says.

Hadley and Harper continue to color and talk back and forth the rest of the afternoon, and the universe expands immeasurably, like love.