Claire Sparkle sits on my lap while we read, one hand holding the book, the other finding my chin. She moves it back and forth.
“Do you like wiggling my double chin?” I ask.
“It’s soft,” she says, as if she were touching a bunny’s ear.
She has no idea that I have spent years wishing away that part of myself. She doesn’t know that every mirror reflects those thoughts back to me.
Her fingers wiggle my waddle because it is soft. Because it is me. The Vavie she loves.
I feel something shift inside me.
My granddaughter has returned my face to me, made new through her eyes. The face that bends down to read to her. The lap she climbs into. The voice that knows all the characters. My double chin is part of the landscape of someone she feels safe with
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