“Don’t you love your kids the same?”
“Of course not.”
“I thought parents didn’t have favorites?”
“Of course they do. My favorite’s my youngest, Kent, because he’s a mama’s boy. He visits with
me every Sunday.”
Loyally I say, “Well, I don’t think my parents had favorites.” I say it because it seems like the right
thing to say, but is it true? I mean, if somebody put a gun to my head and said I had to choose, who
would I say was Daddy’s favorite? Margot, probably. They’re the most alike. She’s genuinely into
documentaries and bird-watching, just like him. Kitty’s the baby, which automatically gives her an
edge. Where does that leave me, the middle Song girl? Maybe I was Mommy’s favorite. I wish I
could know for sure. I’d ask Daddy, but I doubt he’d tell the truth. Margot might.
I’d never be able to pick between Margot and Kitty. But if, say, they were both drowning and I
could only throw one a life jacket, it would probably have to be Kitty. Margot would never forgive
me otherwise. Kitty’s both of ours to care for.
The thought of ever losing Kitty puts me in a kinder, more contemplative mood, and so that night after
she’s asleep, I bake off a tray of snickerdoodles, her favorite cookie. I have bags of cookie dough in
the freezer, frozen into perfect cylindrical balls so that when any of us gets a taste for cookies, we can
have them in twenty minutes flat. She’ll have a nice surprise when she opens her lunch bag tomorrow.
I let Jamie have a cookie too, even though I know I shouldn’t. But he keeps looking up at me with
sorrowful puppy eyes and I can’t resist.