AS IF IT WERE A CONDITION OF HER INDIAN VISA, TRACA COULD OFTEN be found holding one of the tiny twins, Saloni or Shivani. Traca has never been fond of the human jungle gym routine older children can often require, but give her a fussy three-month-old girl ready for a nap and she will rock her to sleep and beyond. She even offered to stand in as babysitter whenever needed—which is why we ended up with baby Saloni sleeping in our room one night.
It wasn’t a sacrifice, actually. At just three months old, Saloni was a champion sleeper. Even in the heat and noise of regular Farm life, she could just shut down as if her battery were dead. Then she could be passed around, barked at, kissed, or changed and she would not wake up—a valuable skill when you share your life with ninety-nine active and chaotic brothers and sisters.
On the night we had her, it was hotter than usual. The fan in our room circulated the air more like a convection oven than a cooling device, but Saloni didn’t seem to notice. She lay on her back on our bed, arms and legs spread wide, dressed only in a cloth diaper, sound asleep. As Traca and I lay on either side of her, watching her perfect face by candlelight, she brought back a flood of memories.
“She looks like Jackson in Paris,” Traca whispered.
“Only less sweaty,” I said, knowing exactly the moment Traca was referring to. Jack was five years old and sharing a bed with her brother, both of them exhausted after a day of sightseeing. We were on our way to Portugal, cutting across France, when a friend offered us the use of her apartment in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Just before I went to bed that night, I poked my head into the kids’ room and found Jack fast asleep, on her back, arms and legs spread wide like an X. She was sweating all over, trying to cool off, while Logan slept on the edge of the bed, in danger of falling, accommodating his brash little sister as usual.
“Our kids were good sleepers, just like this little one,” Traca said softly, touching a finger to Saloni’s tiny hand.
“Remember that party at your parents’ house?” I asked, and Traca smiled, nodded. We’d been playing some game that had us screaming at the top of our lungs. Traca’s two sisters, her parents, and the two of us, all simultaneously shouting as if we were each competing for the title of Loudest Family Member. When the cacophony reached its hilarious and earsplitting climax, someone pointed to the ceiling and we all remembered: The kids’ room was just at the top of the stairs. We all knew that no living creature with reasonable hearing could have slept through the din we’d just created, but when I ran up to check on them, there they were: fast asleep.
“I love this age,” Traca said, the nostalgia thick in the room now. “The way Logan used to smile at the angels …”
It was code for something Logan used to do. When he was Saloni’s age, we liked to bring him into our bed in the morning and lay him on his back between us. He was a happy child, fun to engage … but sometimes he’d stare at the ceiling and smile as if something was up there. He’d laugh and kick his feet, his eyes fixed on some wonderful vision above him. Traca liked to think he could see the angels that surrounded us, but whenever I rolled over and looked up, all I ever saw was the ceiling.
We talked this way for a half hour or more, jumping from memory to memory before putting baby Saloni in her bassinet and climbing into bed together. But as we lay there in the shadows with the candle burning down, the conversation stayed with me. There was something so intimate about it: the ability to return together at the slightest prompting to a particular moment in time. It’s one of the greatest treasures of a long-term relationship, I think, that kind of shared history. Not simply the big events, the public triumphs or tragedies, the births and deaths … but the everyday moments that no one else is paying attention to, common moments that become special ones because they were shared.
At our darkest times, I’ve tried to imagine starting over with someone else. Wiping the slate clean. What would it be like? I’d meet someone new, someone nice, and I’d sit across from her at a restaurant, and inevitably she’d start the small talk off with something like “So. Where are you from?”
And I would start with the major plot points, the big picture. Because honestly, no matter how into you someone new wants to be, they don’t really care about your daughter lying on her back in Paris, or your son smiling up at the angels. If they have kids of their own, they have their own moments that are precious only to those who were there and still care enough to remember. It’s like looking at a stranger’s wedding pictures. If you’re not in the shot or connected to the event in some way, another bridal party in front of another church is about as meaningful as a tuxedo ad.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come to the ashram?” Traca asked, whispering into the candlelight. “It looks amazing.”
She sounded sleepy, her own battery getting ready to shut down. Through the years, I’d seen it happen many times: She’d ask me a question and before I could finish answering, she’d be fast asleep. I could tell by the tone of her voice that her night was almost over.
After much Internet searching, Traca had enrolled at the Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, a holy city ten hours north of the Farm on the banks of the Ganges. Her plan was to take a ten-day yoga retreat, complete with 4:00 A.M. meditation and chanting, daily yogic breathing classes, endless poses … all of which sounded like pure death to our little Jackson. Like an obstinate water buffalo, Jack wasn’t ready to leave the Farm just yet, and when I thought about it, neither was I. Though I knew how powerful yoga retreats could be, I felt there was much more for me to learn with the Farm kids than by myself on a mat.
“I really want to stay,” I said gently. “Is that okay with you?”
“Of course,” Traca said, sounding farther away. “Logan and I will tell you all about it.”
Though the Small Boys begged him to stay, Logan had decided to head north as well. I know he loved the Farm as much as I did, but as an acutely sensitive son, he was not going to let his mother leave the family alone, protecting both her feelings and her safety.
He’s always been considerate of Traca in this way. When the kids were younger, if we were at a party or out to dinner as a family and we had two cars, Jack always rode home with me. “I’m going with Dad!” she’d blurt, as if the first one who said it was the winner. If Logan also wanted to ride with me, he never made an issue of it. He’d just hug his mom and off they’d go. The same thing happened at the Farm.
With less than six hours until their bus left for Rishikesh, Traca and I lay beside each other in bed, mostly naked, on top of our sheets. And as I watched our ceiling fan futilely chop the air, or the angels that were up there smiling down at us, I had a thought.
“Trace?” I said.
At that moment, I wanted to thank her, not just for being okay with the time apart that we both felt would be a good thing, but for all the years we’d spent together. For being a part of all the tiny moments of my life. Where was I from? Only one person really knew, because she had been there, too.
I wanted to tell her that, but I was too late. When I rolled over to look at her, she was already fast asleep.