“Why is my middle name Paris?”
Emi watched as her mum and dad immediately turned their attention from the Eiffel Tower and exchanged really weird looks with each other. They didn’t say a word for a while, which made Emi even more curious. She was distracted for a moment, however, by Elia’s excited squeals as she ran around with Maë and Angelo. Now it was just Aunty Daphne looking after them while Emi’s mum and dad just… stared at each other? “Mummy? Daddy?” She waited. “Uhm…” Her dad looked at her, obviously not sure what to say. “Well… when your mum and I got married, we came here for our honeymoon. The house we have here was my wedding gift to her. A total surprise, and we sort of made a new life here… Until we found out that mummy was pregnant with you.” “Oh…” Emi frowned in deep thought. “So you named me Paris because… you like it here? Or because you found out that you were pregnant with me while you were here?” She moved her eyes to her mum now. “Yes,” her mum said a little too quickly. “That’s why.” She smiled, but there was a kind of nervousness behind the smile. It made Emi suspicious. “Well…” Her mummy glanced at her daddy. “Because Paris was the start of our married lives together, even though we were married in New York. And Because you were the start of our family.” Now there was a genuine smile. “Oh why didn’t you just say so?” Emi giggled. “So I made Paris even more special huh?” “Exactly,” her parents said together. Emi beamed. Now she liked the city even more.
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Emi didn’t quite understand love. Well not the love between a boy and a girl or a man and a woman at least. Sure she knew what it was like to love Angelo, but he was her brother. And of course she loved her daddy. While in Vilnius she’d gotten to hear so many stories about her parents when they were younger. It seemed that they knew what love was like already at her age. She couldn’t imagine it though. It was just too weird. Boys were weird, even. Not that she got to spend a lot of time with boys, aside from Angelo. Jarrett and Lijah were in London, so she rarely got to see them. And León was in Madrid. Jarrett was pretty weird and Lijah was a sweetheart, but still different from a girl. She looked at a picture of her parents on their wedding day and wondered what it was like to kiss a boy. Did it feel funny? Was it gross? She assumed it was gross. After all… kissing a boy on the lips? Yuck. Yet her mummy and daddy did it all the time. Maybe it was because they were married? Maybe being married made things feel different. Emi giggled at some really young pictures she’d found. It was hard to believe that her mum and dad were once her age but, here was the proof. Maybe one day, she'd get it. But for now, love was a mystery.
The room was filled with constant giggles as one of Emi’s newest little critters burrowed under her sheets. “Yang!” she exclaimed. “Where are you?” The white ferret peeked out from under the sheet for a split second before burrowing underneath again. She was a fast little critter. Emi did read somewhere that ferrets were burrowing creatures. In the wild, they made tunnels underground. But this was so cute. Every time Emi tried to catch Yang, she disappeared under the sheets again.
Yin was fast asleep in his cage. It seemed like Elia liked him the best for some reason. Maybe because his name was easier for her to say. She said Yang’s name like “Ya” but she said Yin’s name pretty much perfectly. Yang peeked out from underneath the sheets again and poked Emi’s leg. Emi giggled and lifted the baby ferret into her lap. She had been told that they grew quickly and would be much larger than this. Which probably would make her easier to spot when she was running around the house anyway. “Come on, Yang,” said Emi. She got off the bed and walked into the living room where the cage was set up. She’d left it there so that everyone could enjoy her pets. Elia and Angelo liked the ferrets too. Even her mum and dad really liked them. She was so happy that she finally had a pet of her own again, even when they were becoming like the family pet. She put Yang back into her cage and watched as the ferret climbed the cage steps up to the hammock where her brother was sleeping. “Have a good nap,” she said, smiling widely. She closed the cage and left the ferrets to take their nap. |
Emilia at a glanceNames: Emilia Paris van Loon Archives
April 2017
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