Touched

Mommy doesn't like the flower on my knee. This morning she said, "Misha, what's that on your leg?"

"It's a circle of flower petals, Mommy!"

"Oh really. Let me see."

Mommy leaned in and then jumped up with a start.

"What's wrong, Mommy?"

She asked me if the bruises hurt.

"Bruises? They're not bruises. It's another place where God touched me to show that I'm special."

I think Mommy might think I'm a little but crazy, like the big, bald man in yellow pants and a purple shirt who shouts out how much he loves Jesus on the corner by Toys R Us. I know that other ten year olds might not believe that God is in them quite so much as I do, but I have to believe it. I'm a miracle child. That's what Mommy and Daddy tell me.

"You shouldn't even have been put in Mommy's tummy." Daddy says, smiling in Mommy's general direction.

"That's right! You were scheduled to be at that conference in New York that weekend."

"But he wasn't, right, Mommy?"

"Right, Misha."

Then, I burst into the world two months early. That's what Granny says. She says it like I did something wrong, like I should have been more patient.

I think I knew that I needed to get here, needed to be part of this family as soon as I could.

"Misha? Do you have bruises anywhere else?"

"No, Mommy."

"Are you sure?"

I tell her that I am, but I lift up my shirt to show her the raised red dots on my stomach.

"Oh!" Mommy reaches out a finger and barely touches me. I think she's afraid she'll hurt me.

"Does it itch, Misha?"

"No, Mommy. It's just God touching me."