Last week, Jada the Unfazeable got fazed. She was lying in Theo’s downstairs bed with Theo’s blanket and Theo’s soft dreidel chew toy and Theo’s antler chew when a breeze from the open window blew a large painting off the mantel, taking with it four ceramic sculptures and two smaller paintings. The carefully curated art collection landed with an impressive boom and a loud shatter just inches from her face.
Jada ejected herself out of the bed practically retroactively. Within milliseconds she had zoomed away from the scene of the mayhem and up the stairs and launched herself onto her favorite little sofa, the one in my office on which there is, dead center, a tennis ball she both never plays with and never lets me remove. There she sat, quivering.
I tried to comfort her. I sat down and hugged her, pulling her tiny, frightened little body against mine and kissing her on the soft, concave spot where snout meets forehead. I explained about the wind.
“Sometimes we don’t know it’s going to wreak havoc until it does,” I said in my most profound, and profoundly maternal, tone. I stroked her face and ears. I admired, aloud, her long eyelashes.
“Where did you GET those?” I asked her. “They’re so beautiful!” But Jada just doubled down on her quivering.