You are annoyed that the games are silly. The clothespins, the melted chocolate in the diaper, the guessing of the mother's belly with a length of yarn everyone cuts too long. You are keeping count of the hours. I remember this, and I want to tell you something.
Look at the paper plate in your lap. Cream cheese mints, a scoop of nuts, a slice of cake with a frosting duck. You will not remember eating it. But you will remember, without trying, the sound of that whole room laughing at once when she held up the tiny yellow socks and could not speak.
That room is fuller than you know. Some of the women reaching for more punch will not be reachable for much longer. You are standing near them, half-listening, thinking about the traffic home.
Here is my confession. I have tried for years to rebuild this afternoon and I keep losing pieces. The light through the kitchen window. Who sat by the gifts and read the cards aloud. The exact laugh.
So do this for me. When it is your turn to guess the belly, cut the yarn too long on purpose. Take the mint. Stay for the ugly part where everyone folds chairs and finds their coats, because that is when the best talking happens, in the doorway, nobody wanting to be first to go.
The baby in those socks is grown now, and lovely, and busy.
This is the day she was only a wish in a warm room, and you were there.