Constancy

Ahhh, so if you look over there, right there on the floor--and be careful of the dust, it will shred your soles--under the scrap of green silk, under the scratches on the table where R and I drank Ouzo and danced in high heels, yes, just there, on the Calcutta marble, that is Baby Cousins.
Baby Cousins is my oldest and most faithful friend. I don't remember the day I got him, or the day I named him; he has always been there and he has always been mine, and I his. He was and is always the perfect size. In fact, he is perfect in every way. His tiny sock body was held close to my heart, and under my chin through heart wrenching childhood moves, parental slights and the meanness of brothers and girls. He went on all of my trips, I think, traveling with me across several continents, the softness and smoothness of his little self always in my pocket waiting for my clutch. A well educated fellow, he went to college and grad school.
Baby Cousins has been there for every death, his small self absorbing tears and sobs, and kisses. And he is with me now. He has always fit perfectly in my hand, although I have been told that as a very young child I carried him in my mouth.
He has suffered too, my beloved Baby Cousins. A dog chewed off one leg and both arms, and his nose is but a pit, much like the leper on Chowringhee Boulevard in Calcutta. Whenever we drove past that man my mother would say, "Oh, look at that over there," pointing out of the window opposite the noseless beggar. That was, of course, our signal to look at him, hoping to see what, just exactly what, was inside that dark hole where his nose had left a vacancy.

But Baby Cousins, like all things loved, is perfect. He still fits in my hand, and can be squeezed to my heart and under my chin, and he will, just as he always has, absorb endless quantities of tears and remind me that there are some things that really are always there, even if they look a little different. Maybe it is those treasured things that remind us, if we let them, that things will be okay again even as life lies in splinters. And that is what we hold on to, for knowing that fits just perfectly into a palm, can be pressed against a heart and perhaps even fill it.