Another mid-night hugfest

from Sunday, 4 October 2009

For the last few evenings I have been sitting up in my room typing online and writing in journals and sending email-- probably making up for having been out-of-touch when I was sick last week. Usually I am in my cover-up shirt-- as I have described it to so many people online, it's a men's shirt from like the '70s in white cotton and decorated in blue ruffles and stuff round the collar and little tuxedo buttons. I thought it was a women's shirt when I found it on the rack at the thrift shop which Jessy and I visit often, just for fun. But it buttons the other way-- so it's a men's. It is almost my size being only a little too big and it makes a good swimsuit cover-up, and so I have used it on the beach or round the house for over a year now. Jessy has another shirt for the same purpose but hers is a faded bright red and a little heavier, almost like a flannie.

Sometimes I wear the cover-up shirt round the house, maybe with socks if my feet are cold or sandals or even shoes if I feel like it... and nothing else. It's acceptable enough if I keep it closed. For a while I was using a little silver belt round my waist to hold it closed, but that got awkward because the pleats down the front get twisted and wrinkled. And I'd rather not have to iron something I used only as a cover-up, you know.

I was sitting here last night typing like crazy when I heard Lisa saying something in her bed. She gets tucked-in round 8.00 and normally goes out like a light. Here it was past 9.30 and she was up and upset about something. I got up, wrapped my arms round myself to hold the short closed, and tiptoed into her room.

'Hey,' I whispered. 'Are you okay?'

'Janine?' she called from the darkness.

Without putting on a light I shuffled in and sat on the side of her bed. 'I'm here, sweetie. What's wrong?'

She sniffled. 'I had a bad dream,' she said.

'Awww, sweetie....' I reached out and she put her arms up and we hugged. I hung onto her nice and snugly for a few minutes without even saying anything. She is known for being a willingly snuggler and will happily hang onto any of us for as long as we can stand it. She nestled her head upon my chest and wrapped her little arms round my middle and made a very nice little package to hang onto. 'What was it about?' I asked her.

'Something was chasing me,' she whispered. 'I was outside looking for Mummy and you. I couldn't find you... and something came out of the bushes outside.'

'Awww.... Was it dark, in the dream?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Sweetie,' I said with a little smile. 'But you are never outside like that in the dark. You know it's only something like a dream then. When you woke up in your own bed, you knew you were safe and sound.'

She sniffled. 'I thought I heard it in my room,' she said.

'Shhh, shhh.... We both listened for like a full minute. Nothing came but the faint sound of Jessy typing away on her computer down the gallery. She had her headphones on and we could not even hear the hiss of her music. 'There's no one here but you and me,' I said.

'Will you sleep with me?' she asked.

'Oh, sweetie.... I will be up a whole longer. And this is your bed. You'll be fine here.'

'I don't want to be alone,' she said.

I gave her a big squeeze and then held her out in front of me. Her well-browned little body was as dark as the shadows of the room. 'But you are never alone,' I whispered to her. 'There is always someone here to care for you. You know that.'

She nodded and blotted her eyes. Then, impetuously, she put out her arms and caught me for a hug, this time reaching inside the shirt. It was only inadvertent, you know, but for a moment I felt strangely womanly, as though in that one moment Lisa were my own child. She lay her head right on top of my breast and sighed with her eyes closed. I wondered if she imagined the same thing too.

Mother and Daddy have their room on the other side of the main tower, in the same place as mine but down the other wing. Beside them is what was intended for the lady's parlour, now being used as J.J.'s nursery. The three of us girls are all up here in the north wing. If Lisa cries out, it's sort of implied that it's my job to get up and go see to her. Mother would never hear her, and of course their door is usually closed at night. My door (the one on the north gallery) is always open. Lisa has often wandered in late at night or early in the morning to snuggle with me, or sometimes Jessy, and she knows she is never unwelcome. In that way then I am sometimes the substitute mother down here.

When I was Lisa's age, my stepmother was our nanny and she was about the age I am now. I remember on the few times I had bad dreams she would tiptoe in to my room and ask in a gentle whisper if I were all right. Of course I loved my mother and trusted her implicitly, but I always felt special when our nanny came in to comfort me. She had a sweet, affectionate way with Jessy and me that came from loving us by choice-- she was not our mother, yet she chose to love us anyway, and I think we always felt comforted by that. Lisa is not my child, she is in fact only a half-sister, and I know in many families there is sometimes animosity between half-siblings over who gets the most attention. We have solved that in this house by making sure that we all pay attention to all the others. No one is immune to getting a hug round here. And as I have written before, no one is immune to getting scolded by someone older round here. Lisa has accidentally called me 'Mummy' more than a few times., because she accepts my authority and my affection, almost as though she had two mothers. I have never minded it. In many ways she is sort of a plaything for me, the one I get to practise playing mummy on myself. After all when our nanny became our stepmother none of us doubted that she would turn out to be as wonderful as she has, for she had experience in caring for us out of love. I know that, if God grants me the opportunity, I will have children and love and guide and hug them with all my heart. I believe that's the purpose of life. I only hope that from having been so attentive to little Lisa, I will be as good to my own children as my mother was, as our stepmother has been after her. and that they will adore me as much as I have adored my own mother, and my stepmother after her. There is a lot of love in this family.

I tucked Lisa back into her covers, bending down and kissing her forehead. She sighed, shifting her bottom into the bed a little, and smiled up at me. 'I love you, Janine,' she said softly.

'And I love you, sweet little princess. Do not worry about scary creatures in the night, all right? And if you are worried, you just run down the hall to my room and come in with me. Okay?'

She nodded. I was still bending over her and I saw her look down at me. From that time last year that little J.J. innocently touched me I know there is a certain appeal to how I look when I am assuming a motherly role for these little ones. It's because I am sort of built like Mother is. Jessy has the body of a ballerina, lithe and lovely-- she gets it from our own mommy. But I have the 'assets' (how I hate that term) that smaller children tend to associate with actual mothers, and since they have not seen their mother's own 'assets' since they stopped nursing, and since they see mine so much (as you must know) I think they tend to assume straight away that I am the second mother round here. But I don't mind. As I have told them before, I cannot help what God wanted me to look like. In fact maybe He let me look like this on purpose to be able to reassure a small child who wakes up in the night, too far from their own mother, so that she may feel she is safe and loved and home where she belongs, with a big sister who loves her for all the right reasons.

I returned to my room and sat back on my bed, in the dull bluish glow of the laptop screen, and felt a little shiver. I always get that shiver when something that has just passed has just gone so unbelievably RIGHT that I'm almost embarrassed or afraid to admit it, like after making a good impression on front of someone famous or acing an oral presentation in class or coming in from some really lovely date with a terrific guy who actually likes me and wants to see me again. It's God's way of patting me on the back-- 'Servant, well done.'

The next question I got on an AOL message was 'bra size?' Oh, well.

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