We are three to a bed in a household of bodies. All blood relatives gathered for our biannual reunion. The option to sleep between Mama and Daddy seems more comfortable than sleeping on the floor in a mound of cousins, pouched in Granddaddy’s military sleeping bag. They are shaped like lips sweating, with me as an exposed row of upper teeth. The two of them snoring and me welcoming midnight. Daddy’s body smelling like cut grass shavings. His pineapple breath in my ear. Mama’s spine appearing and disappearing in the reaches of her damp nightgown. Me, welcoming midnight while lying my back. Welcoming 40 between them, for the first time in so long, I can’t find enough fingers and toes in the dark. I have enough to count the number of times of how we were during thunderstorms. Me crawling over the fort of their bodies. Daddy growling something about me being too old to be sleeping here. Mama telling him to leave me alone before moving to the edge of the bed. Before me burrowing my nose in the nightgown covering areas of her spine. Daddy pulling me back to center, to keep me breathing, his hand over my eyes. Fingers closing tighter every time the lightning strikes. The memory makes me playful. I blow a breeze across Daddy’s face. He grunts and turns away from me, and here I am alone again. Here, I am reminded how small they have become. How large I have grown, and I fear that my growth has stunted them. Fear that I have overwhelmed what remains of them. Fear that I have failed to create a smaller body who would lie here, in the gap between us. Here, in the how we were like Russian nesting dolls. An incomplete, broken set. Here, in the how we were is Mama rolling over, her hand on my stomach asking what’s wrong? Rubbing the swell where nothing continues to grow. Whispering Happy birthday, baby. Daddy with his hand resting on my face until he’s pinching my nose and, here, the three of us are. All tangled like we were so many times before. Here, in the how we were.