Kids Say The Damnedest Things

I am visiting with my four-year-old cousin, Paige. She is a sunny child, with skin like cream and hair of such a pale red hue that it’s actually pink. She used to have blue eyes, and then last year they suddenly and definitively turned to smoky grey. Now her whole palette is muted, like a person drawn with watercolors. Her personality, though, is technicolor.

She’s telling me about John Henry, who comes and plays guitar to her preschool class. She is quite taken with John Henry, who, she informs me several times, is a guitar playin’ man who was actually born with a guitar in his hand.

I have kind of a thing for guitar playin’ men, and also I’m a little weary of the other game we’ve been playing where I have to guess the name of her stuffed cat. She keeps changing the right answer so the game won’t end, and I don’t want to have to call her on her trickery, so I start asking some questions about John Henry.

Is he very nice?

He is, definitely.

Is he handsome?

She shakes her head, and confides that he does not have ANY hair on his head, except a few little pieces on each side, but they are as small as ants. Just in case I’m not getting the picture, she clarifies: He has a BIG bald head–really big. She holds her hands out to demonstrate just how big, but I’m undeterred. I like a bald man, as it happens.

Is he tall?

This is where I learn that four-year-olds are terrible judges of height, and that Paige sometimes lies when she doesn’t know an answer. I file this information away for later use.

Does he wear any jewelry, I ask, like maybe a ring? By this point, I’m totally doing that Bill Cosby thing adults do when they use children as props for ad hoc performance art. I’m usually cooler than this, I swear. But Paige will not be anyone’s monkey.

No, she tells me coolly, pushing a pink tendril of hair behind her ear. He doesn’t wear a ring because he hasn’t found anyone to marry yet.

Oh, I say. I don’t know what else to say to that–she saw right through me. Behind her head, Paige’s dad raises his eyebrows at me. How the hell do kids who just turned four know this stuff? Even I forget to look for wedding rings sometimes. What else do they know that we think they don’t? It’s kind of creepy, these dexterous mini-humans acting all helpless and innocent while their little brains are just crunching away, connecting the dots faster and faster, growing ever more shrewd.

I’m ready to change the subject now, but Paige is not. She’s studying me closely over the head of her stuffed cat, whose name I know to be Lollipop despite tonight’s earlier prevarication.

Girls can marry girls, right? she asks. Paige’s beloved uncle is married to her other beloved uncle, and she was at the wedding, so she knows how these things work. It’s basically a rhetorical question, but I answer anyway. Sure they can, if they want to burn eternally in a lake of fire with the rest of the damned.

Of course I don’t say that. I was just worried that this story was getting kind of twee.

Yes, that’s right, girls can definitely marry girls.

Then when I get bigger, I’m going to marry YOU! She is beaming. I clap my hands. This is not only the best marriage proposal I have ever received, it’s also the only marriage proposal I have ever received. I’m flattered.  Also, Paige’s parents are both doctors, so I have high hopes for her future earning potential.

I catch her mom’s eye and smile so that we can bask in the cuteness of this moment. People with kids enjoy it when you appreciate their kids’ precocity, so I make sure to express my appreciation with gusto. It’s only polite. Plus, I really do love Paige and her brother, seven-year-old Aidan; they are lovely kids and their presence in the area is a boon to both the city and my life.

She smiles back. Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you this. We had a long conversation today about how you and B. (my sister) were related to us. The kids kept asking which one of you was our cousin, and I couldn’t figure out what they meant. Then Aidan asked how you could marry each other if you were both our cousin, and I understood–they think B. is your wife.

I wish I could tell you that my first reaction was a swell of joy that these kids whom I love so much are growing up in a world where it seems perfectly natural that two women would be married. Like, of course we are. We used to live together, and we have a big dog and a Jeep. What other explanation could there be?

And that was my honest second reaction. But my first reaction was something a lot more base and sad, as I try to gear up for another solo Christmas. I do not want to be these children’s sad spinster auntie. Is C. by herself again? We should invite her over for Christmas Eve. Oh shoot, I don’t have a present–here, wrap up one of the cat’s toys and that Bath and Body Works lotion on the dresser.

Ho ho holy shit, I need to start dating again.