Chapter 16

After we left the tram I took us to Old Town, the original settlement of Albuquerque – back when the spelling was still Alburquerque, with an extra R, for the name is in honor of the Duke of Alburquerque in Spain. Not long before, the 300^th anniversary of Albuquerque's founding had come and gone. The United States, if you date it from the Declaration of Independence, is only 230 years old. Albuquerque had been here for 70 years when the Declaration issued forth.

We were sitting on a bench in the plaza when Darlia called my attention to a couple passing by with their arms around each other and kissing. "That makes me think of you and Mommy."

I couldn't see any resemblance. "Why?"

"'Cause you and Mommy always do kissy-kissy."

I laughed. "Yeah, we do, I guess."

"Why do you do that, Daddy?"

I thought of a children's book I'd seen years ago - Questions, Questions, Not Another Question. Darlia seemed to be in interrogator mode today. "Well, 'Lia, we love each other."

"Do people who love each other do kissy-kissy all the time?"

"I'm not real sure that I like that term for what your Mommy and I do, though it does make a good joke and I don't know what else to call it. But some people do. You know that Mommy and I love you, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you love us."

"Yeah!"

"And Mommy and I love each other. But that's three different kinds of love."

"Three kinds?"

"Yeah. The way parents love their children is different from how the children love their parents. And how parents love each other is different from those two." I was wading in deep water now; this is stuff I'm not sure I can explain to myself. "Mommy and I love you, but we love each other too, and in a way that's different from how we love you. And when grownups love each other, usually they do kiss and hug and hold hands a lot."

"Not always?"

"No, not always. I don't know why not, but some people love each other but don't do that. Me and Mommy, we can't live without it."

"Did you always know Mommy?"

"No," I said, "not always. You know when you were born, right?"

"May eleven, 1997!" Trust a child to say eleven instead of eleventh.

"Well, Mommy and I got married about two years before that, on April 20, 1995. And we met each other in September of 1994. So we both lived 30 years before we ever met each other ... actually we were still 29 when we met."

"And how old are you and Mommy now?"

"We'll be 42 in April."

"So you're 41 now, and you were 29 when you met Mommy, and she was 29 too..." I could almost see her mathematical wheels turning. "That means you've known each other for 11 years?"

I did my own math. I know how many anniversaries we've had, but how long we'd known each other... "It's been 12 years, actually, since we met in September of 1994."

"Okay, 12 years."

"Right. So we didn't always know each other."

"I guess not. But did you love Mommy as long as you've known her?"

"Darlia, you've got about 28 million questions today, and they're good ones too. What's up?"

"I just got curious. And yesterday Mommy and Tía Sara were talking about anniversaries and stuff." Sara isn't actually Darlia's aunt, but that's what the Spanish word meant.

"Ah, I see." And I did. Kids hear more than we frequently think they do, even when we repeat the pitchers and ears saying. "Well, to answer your question, the first time I saw Mommy I thought she was ugly, and she thought I was dumb."

"Mommy's not ugly!"

"No, she's not – and I'm not completely dumb either. But that's what we thought." I considered how to say what I wanted to say. "You've known what Mommy looks like all your life. To you that's what a mother is supposed to look like. And besides you love Mommy, which makes her look even better to you than she does – if that makes sense to you. But the first time I met Mommy I'd never seen her before, and I didn't love her yet, and so I didn't really think she was pretty."

"Oh. Is that kind of like Janie at school?"

"I dunno – I don't know Janie."

"Well, I like her, but when she first came to school I thought she was mean and ugly."

"Yeah, I guess it's kind of like that, though I didn't necessarily think Mommy was mean. But you know how skinny she is, and how her face is ... well, it's kind of sharp, I guess is how I can say it. And I don't really like women like that, so I didn't like Mommy much."

"But now you love her."

I glanced around; even when having a discussion with my daughter I keep an eye on the surroundings. I was only a cop for two years, but it drove the habit into me deep. "Yeah, now I love her, and sometimes it feels like I always did love her. But I didn't. You know I worked for her at first, helping her get some money back that a bad man had stolen. It was only at the end of that case that we started to get friendly, and it was after the case that we started to love each other. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I know when I knew absolutely that I loved her."