Moms and mornings

These days the dogs disappear in the mornings.
"Bums?" I say, fumbling around the blankets.
"Where are they?" Trudi says, her eyes still shut. I smooth my fingertips across her forehead which is damp with bedsweat.
"Upstairs," I say. I can hear their muffled sounds down the hall, the echoes of my mother and the dogs, her voice and footfalls and their jingling dog-chains.

I like the way my mother talks to the dogs. She's always trying to reason with them. "Shoe, slow down. We're going. Have patience! No. Now, Dido, you listen, Dido, or we're not going anywhere. Don't you be aggressive. That doesn't work with me." She gets very serious with the dogs. They really like this; you should see their tails go wild when she does.

"No," she yells, trying to be stern. "Daddy may let you get away with that, but not me. You don't eat that off the ground. Put that down." I close my eyes and smile. It is very easy for me to fall back to sleep like this; It warms me more than I can say.

I am not used to my mother's voice--in real life--anymore. I'm used to it being confined to the small and distant end of a cellphone connection. This voice in the phone is something that usually keeps me from whatever it is I am doing at that moment. Yes,mom. Good to talk to you too, Mom. Miss you too, Mom. Talk to you later, Mom.

But I can't say this feels new exactly. My mother's voice, rising and falling in the distance while putting me to sleep is an age-old scene. It recalls very small times to me. Not only not-yet a man, but not even close. Like an infant that has not yet developed a full-bone skull, the boy I used-to-be was raw, delicate, and vulnerable to any design and impression, benign or otherwise. I can see myself in my single digit ages, protected chiefly by my mother's oft-overwhelming love and attention, and more often than not, too frightened to speak.

As I lie in bed this morning, I breathe in this version of myself which now feels lifetimes away. I doze, and keep one arm locked around Trudi's waist. When I wake, the dogs have been walked, and I feel well. "Want me to cook breakfast?" my mother says. I smile, and feel very strong.