“Did you know Tony before you met Dada?” Bean asked me this morning.  She found me, my hair dripping wet, as I searched for a pair of pants in the pile of clean clothes at the end of my bed.

“Yes,” I said.  “I met Tony when I was only 14, and then we dated for a long time, but we broke up.”

“Why did you break up?”

“Well, because I was still in high school, and Tony was in college, and at the time, our age difference seemed like a really big deal.”

“How did you meet Dada?” she asked, sliding up onto the bed for a long chat.

“We met in college.”

“Yes, but how did you meet?”

“We met in a class.  We took the same photography class.”

“But how did you meet?” she asked, resting her chin on the palms of her hands and leaning forward, as if she was waiting for the fairytale to begin.

I stopped dressing and looked at her.  “Are you trying to ask me something specific?”

“Did you still love Tony?  When you met Dada?”

I blinked.  So this was it, then.  The questions of a child of divorce.  The “did you love my dad” questions.  Yes, my darling.  I did.  We just didn’t fit together.  “It doesn’t really work like that,” I explained.  “I hadn’t seen Tony for years by the time I met your daddy.  It’s not like I sat alone pining for Tony the whole time.  I was out, meeting new people, having adventures.”

“For years?“  she asked.  She slid off the bed, sending laundry tumbling after her, and skibbled into her brother’s room, conversation forgotten for now.  “Mama!” he called.  “Do we have time to do a show?”

I glanced at the clock on my phone.  We had five minutes, and miraculously, they were dressed, with shoes on and teeth brushed.  They instructed me to sit on Bug’s bed.  He sat down at his drum kit.  “I need someone to sing,” he told Bean.  She was on it.

In a flash, I heard Bug count down, “A one, a two, a one-two-three!”

Bean started gyrating and singing her heart out while Bug pounded away on his drums until Bean ended in a grand finale of splits with arms raised, rock-star style.

As we buckled into our seats in the car, Bean told me, “You know who my favorite Muppet is?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Animal.  He’s a rock star,” she said. “Like me.”