This is a literary retelling of a real scene from RHONJ. It can be found at approximately the 5 minute mark.
approx 550 words
She's been home for a day and we can't get enough. We crawl on her like puppies, nudge her with our kitten noses. She smells like cotton sheets fresh from the dryer, citrus shampoo, and all our favourite meals rolled into one.
"Mommy, I don't like my eyebrows," we say. Hers are rainbow arcs and ours are newborn-bushy. They remind us of worms squiggling in puddles out back. The kinds we like to stomp on with our pink plastic boots. As a treat (we are getting so many treats right now) she allows them to be waxed. One, two, three, hairs ripped free, we scream and clutch our faces. It hurts more than we thought it would. Our skin burns but we say yes yes yes when she asks if we really want to do the other side.
"Why?" she asks, implying that we are already beautiful. Her perfect little creatures. We shrug and lift our faces to the light. We mimic her movements, gathering courage as more wax is applied. Like her, we are calm on the outside. We close our eyes and hold our breath. In the darkness, we picture our futures as fabulous as hers: a big house overflowing with Christmas decorations, a husband we've known since high school, so many kids and so much love. To us she is magnificent. To us she can do no wrong.
One, two, three. This time we are ready.
Eyebrows stinging, she collects us onto her lap and we gaze up at her. We hold her face in our tiny hands and look for changes. She was "away" for almost a year and that might not seem like much to some, but for us it was an eternity. It felt like almost our whole lives.
We compete with makeup artists for her attention. There are as many of them as there are of us and they dab her with brushes, prep her skin with oils. Our eyes are the exact same colour as hers and we watch her every move. She smiles at this and bends forward, her newly curled hair still hot from the iron. She gives us a big kiss while rocking us back and forth in her arms that are a different shape than they used to be. She talks about yoga a lot. We try not to cry because she'd tell us not to. She'd tell us to be strong. We are strong.
"More!" we beg but she's busy. She's also tired. Her voice has become gentler, slower, like she's always thinking. Like she's being careful. We heard a friend of hers say something about PTSD and we wonder what it means. We also wonder why even just leaving the house takes so much work. Why it always starts with a phone call to her lawyer who we see more than Uncle Joe and ends with sneaking out through the garage to avoid the paparazzi. We wonder about her ankle monitor.
"Can we stay here the whole time?" we ask from her lap and she says yes but then no and gently lifts us onto the floor. It's Christmas Eve and she has so much work to do.