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No matter how much she narrows her mind’s eye, she can’t see the expression on her mother’s face as she sits on the window ledge. Or rather, Mal’s face, because at that moment her mother is Mal, not Mal-the-mother-of-Phillipa-and-James, just Mal. As hard as she stars, eyes narrowing in concentration, Phillipa can’t see past the halo of back light from the hotel room behind the figure, can’t figure out what Mal is really thinking in that moment, that infinite instant before everything speeds up again. Phillipa can’t see because it’s a memory that isn’t hers, that she’s only pieced together after the fact, and no amount of squinting can ever bring into focus something that she never could see, never could understand to begin with.
At what point do one’s parents leave off being parents and become only themselves? Maybe the inexorable force of gravity has something to do with. After all, it’s only in dreams that the laws of physics cease to exist.
Phillipa smooths her hand over the softness of her white dress, the fingers of her other hand wrapped up warm and comfortable in her mother’s elegant fingers, nails a perfect cherry red. She smiles, glancing up to see the parasol shading her mother’s face from the bright sun, the fabric the exact same colour as the shiny lacquer. Her own face is protected by the wide brim of her white straw hat; it’s not the first time Phillipa has worn it but the novelty has yet to wear off.
They’re quiet, walking side by side, her mother’s longer strides and the short skips that Phillipa makes to keep up, a dance whose steps they’re already well-acquainted with. Her mother might say that l’île de la Jatte is one of Phillipa’s favourite places in Paris, and while that’s not false, it’s also not entirely true. Phillipa’s favourite place is here, moving next to her mother, comfortable in their closeness and the warm feeling of doing something together. Phillipa isn’t quite sure what her parents’ careers are but they travel enough of the time that moments like these, especially ones where she has her mother to herself, James left at home because his legs are too short, are precious.
Together they walk along the grass of the bank beneath the trees, the leaves above casting a dappled pattern on their feet and the canopy of her mother’s parasol. Under the shade of a tree, a family is eating a picnic lunch, a meal of salads and bread spread out on a blanket as a small black dog sits next to a boy, tail wagging as he sneaks it a few scraps when the adults aren’t looking. Phillipa laughs, squeezing her mother’s hand; her mother squeezes gently back.
“Can I please have a dog?” she asks; her mother merely hums and Phillipa knows the answer is no but she can pretend, watching the small dog frolic in the grass, that the answer might be yes anyway. Perhaps if she asks her father some time, when her mother has gone shopping. White sails catch her attention; there are sailboats on the Seine and across the water children are swimming. It’s cool here, beneath the shade of the trees as they walk, but Phillipa looks with longing at the splashing. If she listens very carefully, she can hear laughter.
There’s the sound of sudden splashing from nearby and she cranes her neck, only to see a man cranking the reel of a fishing rod, a flopping fish spasming on the line. It was probably just out for a leisurely afternoon swim, and now it’s gasping for air. Phillipa watches as the desperate flails gradually slows, until the fish is glassy eyed, splayed on the rocks.
“Mother?” she asks, turning to her mother for reassurance, but the sun is shining at the wrong angle and all she can see of her mother’s face is a dark silhouette against the brightness as her hand slides out of her mother’s grasp.
Somehow the sunlight is cold on her bare arms; Phillipa stands there on the grass and barely notices the woman walking some distance away, a monkey on a leash trailing in front of her.
There’s a soft sound, like a sigh or an exhale, and then her mother is reaching for her hand again, fingers cool against the palm of Phillipa’s palm.
“I’m sorry, ma chérie,” her mother says, finally taking a step forward. “I lost my train of thought for a moment.”
Phillipa finds her smile again, lingering in the corners of her mouth, though the expression always sounds strange to her ears. Why would thoughts be a train? And if thoughts are a train, then are dreams airplanes? She thinks about the fact that all of the people around them, those sitting on the grass, the people passing by on the footpath, all of them have an entirely different world in their heads.
“Are dreams airplanes?” she asks, tilting her head up to meet her mother’s gaze. Her mother looks down, sparkling eyes softening into something more pensive.
“Dreams can be anything you can imagine, and things you haven’t even imagined yet,” her mother says. Phillipa tries to imagine something she hasn’t even imaged yet, and quite predictably fails.
“I can’t imagine something I haven’t imaged yet,” she protests, to the sound of her mother’s musical laughter.
“Well, I think we should imagine ourselves some ice cream,” her mother says, and sure enough there’s an ice cream truck when they turn the bend, children laughing and soft music playing in the background.
“Is this imaginary ice cream then?” Phillipa asks, a happy bubbling feeling in her chest as she takes a lick of her ice cream cone.
“No, ma chérie,” her mother says, taking a lick of her own ice cream, the parasol tucked beneath her arm, “this is real.”
If dreams are airplanes, Phillipa decides, then the chill of ice cream at the back of her throat, the stickiness dripping over onto her fingers as the ice cream starts to melt, this is real.
All too soon though, the ice cream is gone, both into her stomach and dripping over her fingers to drop on the path, and maybe that makes it a dream now after all.
“How do you know if something is real or a dream?” she asks her mother as they stop to wash their fingers in a fountain, cool water carrying the last of the melted ice cream away.
Her mother grins. “You don’t,” she says, and splashes water at Phillipa’s face. Phillipa sticks out her tongue before splashing back.