She is opening the little folded clothes one by one, and the whole room makes the same sound each time, that soft collapsing "ohhh," and I could stay in that sound forever. Nobody hears how good it is. They are already looking at the next gift.
There is cake going stale at the edges because everyone is too busy talking to eat it, and I want to tell them: eat the dry cake, it is still cake, you still have a tongue. The paper plates keep bending under the weight of it. Someone laughs so hard she has to put a hand on the wall to stay upright.
She does not know she is doing anything remarkable. She is just laughing in a warm room in an afternoon that will never come again exactly like this.
They wound toilet paper around the mother's belly to guess how big she has gotten, and everyone guessed wrong, and it was the best part, all those clumsy hands measuring a person who is holding another person inside her. So much touching. Shoulders leaned into shoulders. A palm pressed flat to feel the kick. When the small foot answers from inside, the whole circle goes quiet and reaches in, and I remember, oh, I remember what a hand knows.
The one they are waiting for is not here yet. Just a shape, a rumor, a name they are still arguing about kindly. Everyone here loves someone who does not exist to them yet.
Stay a little longer at the table. Let the tea go cold in your hand and hold the cold cup anyway. When he comes, and he is coming, be slow about the boring parts.
They were always the whole thing.