Mia and the Night Before

Mia sat on the soft rug in her room with her blanket over her knees, listening to the quiet of the house. Tomorrow was a big day. Tomorrow, her baby brother was coming home.

Mom came in and sat down beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. "You're thinking very hard," Mom said. "I can hear it from the hallway."

Mia nodded. She had a worry, and it was a small one, but it felt big inside her chest. "When the baby comes," she said, "will you still have enough arms for me?"

Mom smiled and wrapped both arms around Mia at once. "Feel that?" she said. "Two arms, and both of them know your name. Love isn't like a cookie, Mia. You don't have to cut it in half. Love is more like the light in this room. When we turn on another lamp, the first lamp doesn't get dimmer. The room just gets warmer."

Mia thought about that. She liked the idea of a room with two lamps in it.

"Would you like to know a secret about new babies?" Mom asked. "Something hardly anybody tells big sisters?"

Mia leaned in. She loved secrets.

"New babies," Mom whispered, "are very, very small and very, very silly. Your brother's hands are about the size of a plum. His fingernails are tinier than the seeds in a strawberry. He can't hold a spoon, or a crayon, or even his own head. He doesn't know what a dog is. He doesn't know what the moon is. He doesn't even know what his own feet are. When he sees them, he will be amazed."

Mia giggled behind her hand. "He doesn't know about feet?"

"Not one bit," said Mom. "And here is the funny part. He will sleep almost all day, and then at night he will wake up and look around and squeak like a little bird. He will need a clean diaper about nine hundred times. He will lose his pacifier and be very surprised about it. And when he cries, it will not be a sad cry. It will just be his way of saying hungry, or tired, or hold me."

"That's all he can say?" Mia asked.

"That's all, for a long while," Mom said. "Which is why I need a big sister. Somebody who already knows about feet and the moon and dogs. Somebody who can teach him."

Mia sat up straighter. "What's my job?"

Mom counted on her fingers, slow and gentle. "Job number one: the hello. When he comes through the door tomorrow, he'll hear your voice before he sees anything clearly, because new babies see soft and blurry at first. So you get to say the first hello of his whole life at home. Just soft. Like this." Mom said "hello" in a voice like a feather landing.

Mia practiced. "Hello," she breathed. "Hello, baby." It came out perfect.

"Job number two," Mom said. "The humming. You know our bedtime hum? He has never heard it. Not once. You get to be the very first person to hum it to him."

"Job number three?"

"Job number three is the finger," said Mom. "Hold out your pointer finger. Go on." Mia held it out, straight as a little candle. "When you put your finger in his palm, he will squeeze it tight. He can't help it. That's just what babies do. And that squeeze means he's saying your name, the only way he knows how."

Mia looked at her finger for a long moment, imagining a hand the size of a plum curling around it.

"And job number four," Mom said, "is the easiest one of all. Being exactly who you already are. Loud when you want to be loud. Fast when you want to be fast. He is going to think you are the most interesting person in this whole house. He will watch you like you're a parade."

Mia lay back on her pillow, and Mom pulled the blanket up to her chin and smoothed it flat the way she always did, from the shoulders down.

"Mom?" Mia said. "Can we leave my door open a little, so he can hear me hum from here?"

"We can leave it open exactly as much as you like," Mom said.

So they did. The hallway light made a soft yellow stripe across the floor, and the house was quiet in the good way, the way a house is quiet when it is getting ready for something happy. Mia closed her eyes and practiced her hello one more time inside her head, soft as a feather landing. Her finger was ready. Her hum was ready. Tomorrow the door would open and she would be the very first voice he heard.

Mom stayed until Mia's breathing went slow and easy, and the two lamps of the room glowed warm together, and Mia fell asleep proud, and safe, and already a big sister.