Chapter 12 - Noah starts choosing me
Children do not understand legal categories.
Noah understood bodies.
Voices.
Smell.
Routine.
At fourteen months, he began walking.
When he fell, he looked for me.
Not always.
Sometimes Vivian.
Sometimes the nearest adult.
But mostly me.
At sixteen months, he began saying names.
“Vivi.”
Vivian.
“Cece.”
Celeste.
“Mar.”
Margot.
“Elna.”
Me.
Vivian loved that.
“Elna.”
Safe.
Staff-like.
Then at eighteen months he went through a phase of calling every woman:
Mama.
The pediatrician said it was normal label experimentation.
Vivian reacted as though he had detonated something.
“No.”
Every time.
“Noah, Elena.”
I told her:
“He calls the mail carrier Mama.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
She did not answer.
The phase passed.
For everyone except me.
He began saying:
Elna again.
Then:
Nena.
Then sometimes, when half asleep:
Ma.
I never corrected him.
I never encouraged him.
That was the line I walked.
Vivian noticed.
“You need to say Elena.”
“He’s two.”
“He understands.”
May you like
“So do I.”
The Winter Ball was three months later.
