Work Text:
Jess had stopped turning the wooden horse over in her hands. It rested upside down across her knees, its four painted legs pointing toward the ceiling while she stared across the living room at Jennifer. Her attention had first settled on the open book in Jennifer’s lap, then crept upward to her hands, her mouth, the small straight bridge of her nose and the pale hair tucked behind her ears. She looked at one ear for several seconds, shifted her head to study the other, then narrowed her eyes as though distance might be concealing something. Jennifer turned a page. Jess touched her own nose with one finger. Jennifer smoothed the page beneath her thumb. Jess moved her finger from her nose to her ear and held it there, thinking.
The horse slipped from her lap and landed on the rug with a dull clack. Jess glanced down, retrieved it without taking much notice of it, and set it upright beside her leg. She looked back at Jennifer. The late-afternoon light coming through the curtains brightened the right side of Jennifer’s face and left nothing hidden there. No frames crossed her cheeks. Nothing hooked behind her ears. Nothing sat in her hair or hung from a cord around her neck. Jess leaned sideways until one pigtail nearly brushed the carpet, checking Jennifer from the tilted angle, then straightened and stared again.
Jennifer remained with her book, although the same page had held her for some time. A faint movement had begun near one corner of her mouth. Jess did not notice. She had placed both hands flat against the rug and was crawling closer with the quiet purpose she usually reserved for approaching a sleeping animal. Her knees pressed shallow dents into the worn pile. She stopped beside the coffee table and peered through the gap beneath it, looking first at Jennifer’s shoes and then at the floor around them. Nothing lay there except the narrow shadow of the table and one pale thread worked loose from the rug.
Jess rose onto her feet, steadied herself against the table and came around it. She stopped directly in front of Jennifer’s chair, close enough that Jennifer’s lowered book nearly touched the top of her head. Jess studied her face once more. Her brow furrowed. She glanced toward the side table, then back to Jennifer, then toward the sofa cushions as though assembling the available facts.
“Auntie Jen’fer,” she said at last.
Jennifer placed one finger between the pages and lowered the book. “Yes, Jess?”
Jess pointed at her face. “Where your ’lasses at?”
Jennifer’s expression stayed composed for one beat before warmth gathered visibly in it.
“Mm-hm.” Jess nodded, relieved that Jennifer understood which missing object concerned her. “Where dey at?”
“I don’t have any glasses.”
Jess’s small mouth parted. She looked at Jennifer’s nose, waiting for the joke to resolve itself. It did not. “You don’t got ’em?”
“No.”
Jess leaned closer. “You lost ’em?”
“I never had them.”
The answer made even less sense. Jess stepped back and inspected Jennifer from head to toe, as though a woman who had never possessed glasses might show some other unmistakable difference. Jennifer’s dress looked ordinary. Her shoes looked ordinary. She had a book in her lap, which should have settled the matter entirely. Jess lifted her gaze again and said, with patient certainty, “Mama got ’lasses.”
A pause, Jess searched for the thought.
“For readin’ da teeny words.”
“Gamma got ’lasses too. Shiny ones,” Jess added.
Jess lowered her hands and pointed firmly at Jennifer’s book. “You readin’.”
“Indeed, just like you-”
“So where your ’lasses?”
Jennifer closed the book around her finger and considered the child standing before her. Jess waited with all the seriousness of someone who had identified a real inconsistency and expected it to be corrected. “Some people need glasses to help their eyes,” Jennifer said. “Some people don’t.”
“You don’t need no help?”
“My eyes manage quite well on their own.”
Jess’s gaze flicked toward the book. “Even teeny words?”
“Even teeny words.”
“No.” Jess shook her head once. “You gots old eyes.”
Jennifer’s lips pressed together, but the smile escaped at the corners. “Do I?”
Jess nodded. “You a grown-up.”
Jennifer gave a soft laugh, not loud enough to break the solemnity of the investigation. Jess did not laugh with her. She bent and looked beneath Jennifer’s chair instead. One hand braced against the wooden arm while she lowered her head until her cheek nearly touched Jennifer’s knee. She inspected the space beside Jennifer’s shoes, then reached beneath the chair and swept her fingers across the floor.
“There is nothing under there,” Jennifer said softly.
Her fingers encountered a smooth object and closed around it. Jess pulled out a wooden button, held it up hopefully, then frowned when it failed to become glasses. “Dis fall off?”
“Not from me, I don’t think.”
Jess placed the button on the coffee table for later consideration and returned to the search. She flattened herself enough to look beneath the chair from the other side, her hair brushing the rug. “Maybe dey go way back.”
“If they went much farther back, they would be in the wall.”
Jess looked toward the wall as though that remained possible. “How dey get in dere?”
“Perhaps we should inspect the easier places first.”
Jess climbed upright, taking the suggestion as full cooperation. She pointed toward Jennifer’s lap. “Book up. Please”
Jennifer lifted the book.
Jess examined the folds of Jennifer’s dress, then patted the cushion on either side of her hips. She found nothing. “You sit on ’em?”
A shake of her head and hidden smile.
Jess stood and circled her, checking the back of the chair, then the small space between it and the wall. She pushed aside the curtain where it pooled near the floor and looked behind it. Sunlight flashed across her face, making her blink, but she continued. She searched the side table, lifting a coaster, peering inside the empty teacup and crouching to inspect its lower shelf.
“Not in my tea?” Jennifer asked.
“No. Jus’ wet.”
Jess came back around and tilted her head upward. Jennifer stood only a little taller than many grown women seated, yet she was still well above Jess, and the child had to bend her neck until her chin lifted. She studied Jennifer’s hair with renewed suspicion. “Maybe on your head.”
Jennifer reached up and patted her hair. “I don’t feel them.”
“Mama put hers up dere.Den she say, ‘Where my ’lasses?’” Jess lowered her voice in imitation, placed both hands on her hips. “‘Where dey go? I had ’em jus’ now.’” She raised one finger and pointed at the top of her own head. “But dey right dere.”
Jess stepped onto the edge of the chair cushion to gain height. Jennifer immediately offered an arm, and Jess wrapped one hand around it while reaching toward her hair with the other. Her fingertips moved through the smooth blonde strands above Jennifer’s ear. She searched carefully, parting one section and then another, checking as though a pair of spectacles might have become tangled somewhere near the crown.
“Hold still,” Jess instructed.
Jennifer became very still.
The search continued around the back of Jennifer’s head. Jess’s small fingers moved with surprising delicacy, lifting a pale lock and laying it down again.
Jess climbed down from the chair and stood in front of Jennifer again. She looked genuinely troubled now. Searching had changed the glasses from an interesting absence into something that ought to be recovered. Jennifer sat and drew the child gently between her knees. Jess allowed it but did not relax. Her eyes moved over Jennifer’s face with determined concentration.
Jess considered Jennifer from the top of her head to the floor. She had seen Jennifer standing among taller adults often enough to know this was true, but the discovery seemed newly useful. “Maybe you not grow your ’lasses yet.”
Jennifer’s eyes brightened. “Perhaps they’ll appear sometime soon then?”
Jess looked toward the ceiling, calculating the distance Jennifer still needed to grow. “You gotta eat.”
“Oh?”
“Eat more peas.”
Jennifer nodded with a smile.
“An’ bread.”
Jess nodded. “Cake make you grow big.” She spread her arms as wide as she could. “Big big. Den you get ’lasses.”
Jennifer settled back into the chair. Jess remained between her knees, still studying her. The possibility of delayed glasses satisfied her for several seconds, but then she noticed the book lying beside Jennifer and doubt returned. She took it in both hands and lifted it. The book was heavy enough to pull her arms downward, and she rested its bottom edge against Jennifer’s knee.
“Read dis.”
Jennifer reopened the book to the marked page. Jess climbed onto the chair beside her, squeezing into the narrow space between Jennifer and the wooden arm. Jennifer shifted to make room, one hand resting securely around the child’s waist. Jess leaned over the page until her curls almost touched it.
“Dey teeny,” she said, pointing at the printed lines.
“They are.”
“You can see ’em?”
“Yes.”
Jennifer began with the first sentence on the page. The book was not written for a three-year-old and the sentence concerned a railway station, a delayed journey and a woman carrying a green umbrella. Jennifer read it steadily. Jess watched her mouth rather than the words. At the end of the sentence, Jennifer paused.
Jess pointed to another line. “Dat one.”
Jennifer read it.
“Dat one.”
Jennifer continued, Jess leaned against her contently.