mornings at the window.

it's a dream that arrived on the wings of an afternoon some months ago now, the deep summer air sticky and sweet:

my four month belly curved like a soup spoon and our beloved treehouse suddenly felt small. we needed a place for a baby, for a family, to grow. and so we combed listings, volleying them back and forth, day after day. how about this one? 

we made arrangements to tour a bright apartment four flights up in a victorian townhouse. the realtor canceled last minute but offered for us to let ourselves in. we wandered the rooms and we opened closet doors and we found ourselves bewitched by patterned floor tiles and original wooden shutters and trim. when i came to the bedroom, i was hooked in the doorway, eyes cast upward, half expecting peter to come to the window. i could see it all before me: story hours by the open window, peering at each other in the morning light, water towers sentineled on rooftops in plain view, the boy of my dreams now a dream in my arms.

and here we are in spring, our first with each other in this way, and this is how mornings usually happen: we spend them in bed, just the two of us, nursing and napping, foam-topped coffee on the nightstand, agnes obel on piano keys, rain on the sill. francis gazes out the window as i read to him and i wonder what he is thinking of. maybe someday he will tell me.