Day 6

"He loves you more than he loves me," her pink lips turn into a feigned pout.
"Oh, this puppy, he's such a puppy, he's such a siwwy wittoo puppiter..." is the indirect reply, from her mother whose hands are flopping the soft brown ears of this anxious, adoring, one-eyed beast that she never expected to love.
"Mama... you're so... silly."
"Who me?" she turns again to the puppy whose black and white border-collie face cocks slightly to the left, his one good eye tracking his new mother with a somewhat unholy devotion, "Am I the silliest of sillies? What do you think mr. puppish? Are you embarrassed by me? No? See? No silliness happening here!"
The beautiful, lithe, adolescent cinnamon girl-child whose dark, wide eyes are artfully laden with thick black mascara and eye-liner, whose glossy chestnut hair is curled, in envious emulation of her mother's golden ringlets, stops pouting for a moment and laughs as her heavy-footed mama dances in clunky circles around the living room, stopping to roll her hips, and hold the dog's front paws while they take three salsa steps. "Mama..."
"Yes?"
"I love you."
"I love you too, bear bear... come here."
And for a glorious moment, they just dance around the room, those three, that little unconventional family in the middle of an open-concept living space, forgetting about everything, the work, the dishes, the hurt feelings, the psychic exhaustion, the strange quasi-sisterhood. They dance, and hold each other in love.