Everything Changes

in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Since Rael’s death, Tamara has cultivated an obsession with sick and dying children. She’s all Sophie has now, and she’s terrified that she’s not up to the task.
    Faster than a heartbeat, I take in Tamara’s legs, which are pale and not particularly shapely, but always appear as if they would be satiny soft to the touch, the soft curves where her triceps meet her broad, athletic shoulders, and the buoyant presence of her breasts, somewhat obscured, but no less formidable under the tank top. With all beautiful women, there’s always one feature that puts them over the top, and on Tamara it’s her lips, which are full, and a deep crimson that no lipstick could ever hope to achieve. They seem to have been extruded like putty out of her face, pulling her porcelain skin taut into a robust, sensuous, and wholly unintentional pout. Sure, her emerald eyes, each set under a thick dark brow, would be captivating all on their own, but those lips are the kicker, and when you first see them, you have to remind yourself that you’re not seeing her undressed, because for the first moment, that’s always how it feels, and you suddenly understand what the Muslims were going on about when they invented the burka. Lips, done right, are as much a sex organ as any of the more obvious ones.
    This is what it’s come to, a secret, devoted inventory taken at light speed, like I’m guilty of some kind of perversion. The radio is playing loudly, and she hums along with an Eminem song as she reads. On the tiled floor, Sophie has spilled a carton of milk and is taking Cheerios out of a cup, one by one, dipping them into the milk puddle, and eating them. “Zap here!” she says when she sees me. She drops her cup of Cheerios and quickly gets to her feet, running up to my thighs, crunching Cheerios underfoot as she goes, her chubby hands already raised for me to pick her up. I do, kissing each of her soft apple cheeks. “Pok,” she says urgently to me. “Zap tape Sophie pok.”
    “I told her you’re taking her to the park,” Tamara says, putting down the magazine and leaning past Sophie to kiss me on the cheek. I never react to these kisses given in greeting, but every time she gives me one, I realize I’ve been waiting for it, and it is received with a great deal more consciousness than I will ever admit to. These visits used to be innocent, I’m sure of it, weekly gestures of friendship and support, looking in on my best friend’s widow and the baby he left behind. But somewhere along the line, something changed, and she became unbearably beautiful in her quiet grief, in the way she bravely embraced the new solitude of her life, in her serene acceptance of her own tragic circumstances, and something was born in me, something that comes alive only in her presence, that dreams unspeakable things and considers a wide range of absurd possibilities.
    “You okay?” she asks me, her eyes demanding in their concern.
    “I’m not sure.”
    “You want to tell me?”
    “Later,” I say. “Are you coming to the park?”
    “Nah,” Tamara says. “I’ll clean the place up while you’re gone.”
    “You smell something?”
    Tamara nods. “She needs her diaper changed before she goes out.”
    “Zap change you,” Sophie says.
    “I guess you’re elected,” Tamara says, patting my arm with a smirk. She is not big on changing diapers, is not one of those mothers who lovingly bury their noses in their babies’ behinds to determine, through the layers, if they’ve soiled their diapers. She steps over the spilled milk and pads down the hall, her bare feet barely making a sound on the floor. I watch her from behind, so strong and still so vulnerable, all at the same time. The rush of illicit affection is a hot, liquid burst in my chest, like inhaling in a steam room. In my arms, Sophie pulls herself into an upright position and farts into her diaper.
    “Fart!” she says gleefully.

    In the park, there are climbers and swingers. Sophie is a swinger. “Higher,” she cries, not instructing but observing, and she laughs deliciously when I tickle her legs as I push. Her fine blond hair, so much like Rael’s, falls in her eyes whenever she swings forward, lending her the illusion of an older girl being coy. My weekly trips to the park with her have become something larger to me, a stage on which I get to play myself in another life. We are surrounded by children and their mothers, with the occasional