42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

It’s my niece’s birthday today. Although I suppose in her time zone, it has passed already. She is in bed, asleep, happy with her presents, full of cheesecake and feeling no different from the day before, when she was still almost 7.

I sometimes have a problem remembering birthdays. I suspect I inherited it from my father. Like him, I write them down. In a program. Which I don’t access often enough. I had the nagging feeling last month that I was forgetting a niece or nephew birthday. Turns out I was forgetting the birthday of a former roommate. But that’s another subject.

I was proud of myself though, that I remembered Alley’s birthday. When I looked it up, it stuck in my brain as being yesterday. So I called my brother yesterday to see if I could talk to the birthday girl.
Is it her birthday already? he asks in alarm, before calming down. No, her birthday is tomorrow, he says. So instead of talking to my niece, who isn’t home yet, my brother and I talk of normal things, computers, video games.

So I call Alley today, when I know she will be home. I spend almost 20 minutes on the phone in one of the most rambling, undirectable conversations I’ve ever had. Kids are so cute. Especially when they belong to someone else.
I can’t reproduce the conversation I had with Alley and Kalob. I’d say Brendan, but Brendan said nothing intelligible as his sister got more and more frustrated with his efforts to be silent.

What did you get for your birthday? She tells me she got to pick out stuff, probably courtesy of Grandpa Jon and Grandma Donna.
She tells me she picked out a present out of the birthday box at school. She’s having cheesecake with a number seven candle.
I ask her what she’s learning in school. How to read, she says. And she’s won a spelling award. Turns out she’s an excellent speller. I ask her to spell a word for me, a hard word. She says she can spell a hard word. Together. And then explains how it makes sense to her.
Then I ask her if she would like me to pick out some books, or if she would like for Daddy to pick out some books for her. You pick out some books, she says. Daddy had told me the day before that this child is lucky, that she doesn’t need clothes or toys. Or anything. But as my auntly duty, surely there must be something. I’m into buying educational things, so I offer books. Yes, I guess you could buy her books, he admits.

Alley doesn’t know what books she wants, so we ramble some more, and I ask her how her brothers are. Huh? Your brothers. Fine. How’s Mommy and Daddy? Fine. No more details than that. No mention of the pending brother or sister.
I tell her I miss her. I think we talk about how I can’t be there. She asks whether I like it. Very much, I tell her. It’s cold at home, right? There’s snow? I don’t know if she agreed, but she told me it was cold there. Very cold.
I try to direct her to get me to her brother now, after telling her I loved her, and happy birthday. Unasked, she put Brendan up to the phone. The wrong brother, the one I know will not speak to me.
He won’t say anything, Alley says with irritation. He doesn’t know you, she says sagely.
I feel a twinge of regret. I was present for Brendan’s birth, yet he doesn’t remember me. And with my location, it’s unlikely that he will know me any time soon. And I won’t be there for his new brother’s or sister’s birth.
I tell Alley that I understand, that I don’t see him very much.
We finally get to the point where she’s willing to hand me over to Kalob.

Hi, Kalob, I say. Do you know who this is? This is Aunt Melissa. I know that, he says.
He’s smart at figuring this out, this child who is almost 4. (Note to self. April 4, days after my dad.) He heard my brother telling Alley to come to the phone, that it was Aunt Melissa.
Kalob never used to talk to me much, but now he chats up a storm. I ask him about school, and he tells me he’s learning his ABCs. I ask him about counting, but I’m not sure I understood the answer.
He actually asked how I was doing, whether I liked it here and then in a further flash of clarity, asks me if I’ll come for his birthday.
No, honey, I can’t come. I moved far, far away. I begin explaining that it is warm here, just as I did to Alley, but he tells me he already knows this.
It’s far away, I tell him. So far that my Dad and I drove almost four days to get there. That’s very far. So no, I don’t think I can come. I hope to see him sometime this year, I tell him, but not for his birthday. Even if I take an airplane, that’s very expensive. And I can’t get a lot of time off from work.
He asks who’s your Dad? Is he still there? I still don’t think he understands this bit. He knows I am his aunt, but doesn’t really know what that means. You know, Grandpa Jon. Grandpa Jon flew back home. Daddy’s my brother.
I prepare to drop it, but Kalob’s on it. Is Grandma Donna your mom? No, sweety, I say a little sadly. Grandma Donna is my stepmom. My mother, Daddy’s mother, she died a long time ago. And Grandma and Grandpa are my Dad’s parents.
We don’t dwell on this, though. Kalob’s off again on some other tangent, before asking me how I’m doing again.
We’ve covered this, so I think I’ve reached the end of the conversation, and then I spend the next minute trying to convince him to hand the phone over to Daddy.
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, he repeats, almost in a monotone. In a way that is almost certain to be ignored by said Daddy, who is playing a video game, Kalob has informed me.
Tell Daddy Aunt Melissa wants to talk to him. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, a few more times.
Finally it registers with Daddy. What!
Phone, Daddy. I never did convince him to use my name, because I figured Daddy would be more likely to listen. Oh well.
I basically then told my brother that I knew he was playing a game, and that I wouldn’t bother him, but I wondered if that was going to be the only way I could get his now-chatty son off the phone. I tell him his kids talked and talked, and that I’d had the most rambling conversation. But my brother is eager to get back to his game, and anyway, we covered most of what we had to say the day before.
And I hang up the phone and smile. Those kids are cute. I’m just sad I will miss them getting bigger.