Cosmo's Deli by Sharon Kurtzman Page B

hurt.”
    â€œMegan there is nothing wrong with any of these shirts. They don’t hurt.”
    â€œI’m wearing this.”
    â€œYou can’t wear a nightgown. That’s just for sleep.”
    The doorbell rings. Sara knows it’s her mother coming to accompany them to the obstetrician’s office. At this rate they’ll never make it, Sara thinks, throwing the shirts on the kitchen table and going to answer the door.
    â€œWhat’s going on here?” her mother asks, her long legs keeping stride with Sara’s as she follows into the kitchen. Dressed for the day in a peach sweater set and a long floral skirt, Sara’s mother is an older and slightly rounder replica of herself.
    Sara knows Megan’s frazzled expression is a perfect match for her own. “Do you want to tell Grandma Perri why you won’t get dressed?” Sara says, kneeling down.
    Megan shakes her head.
    â€œWhat are my two girls doing to each other?” Sara’s mother asks.
    â€œShe won’t get dressed. We’re never going to make it to this appointment.” Sara picks the shirts up again.
    â€œThey hurt,” Megan says defiantly crossing her arms across her chest.
    â€œAll of them?” Sara’s mother asks, her hazel eyes glowing as she looks at her granddaughter.
    Megan nods.
    Sara’s mother holds out her hand to Megan. “Okay, come upstairs with Grandma. We’ll find something and we’ll let Mommy finish doing her hair.” The little girl lets herself be lead away. Her mother has a special bond with Megan and Sara is confident she will persuade her to put something on. Being an only child, Sara sensed long ago that her mother would have liked to have more children, though she never said so in words. When she was five Sara had asked her mother, “When will I have a brother or sister?”
    Her mother told her, “You fill our hearts to the brim. Any more and Daddy and I might explode.”
    It tickled Sara imagining a heart filling up like a giant water balloon. But as she got older and wondered the same question aloud, Sara noticed the sadness pooling in her mother’s eyes. She learned not to ask anymore. With Megan, her mother became the definition of the doting grandmother.
    After drying her hair, Sara finds her mother and Megan taking turns on a toy xylophone in the kitchen. Megan is dressed from head to toe in purple. Purple floral leggings, purple sweatshirt, purple socks and purple barrettes clipped in her hair.
    â€œMommy, know what day it is?” Megan asks.
    â€œWhat sweety?”
    â€œToday is purple day.”
    â€œSo it is. Okay, let’s get our shoes on.” Sara grabs Megan’s sneakers from a neat row of little shoes in the closet.
    Small hands reach past her and pick up a pair of red rubber rain boots with ladybug faces at the toes. “No, these.”
    â€œMegan it’s not raining out. Put on your sneakers.”
    â€œNo, these!”
    â€œHoney, you don’t wear rainboots unless it’s raining. Besides, they’re red, not purple. I thought today is purple day.”
    â€œNo, they’re purple, too. Right, Grandma?”
    Sara’s mother says, “I remember when you were four, Sara, and you insisted on wearing the same pink ballet tutu for three weeks. Do you remember that?”
    â€œNot really,” Sara says.
    â€œI let you wear it, you weren’t hurting anyone. And boy, did you howl when I tried to put it in the wash.”
    â€œHow’d you get me to stop wearing it?”
    â€œAfter three weeks it was a very ripe gray tutu. I think by then it just lost its appeal to you.”
    â€œOkay,” Sara nods, “rainboots it is.”
    â€œPurple rainboots,” Megan reminds them, slipping her feet in.
    ***
    â€œTurn the page now, Megan,” Sara’s mother says, holding open a children’s book in the waiting room of the obstetrician’s