One Tuesday, I got home early and walked in just as Molly was lifting our son Tommy onto the couch.
Her shirt rode up and I noticed a small glint of green in her navel – an emerald-studded belly-button ring.
Tommy giggled and pointed. “Mommy has that!” he chirped.
I froze. “What?”
He jabbed his little finger toward her stomach again. “That! Mommy has that!”
Molly laughed it off. “Oh, he’s so imaginative.”
I forced a laugh. “Honey, no, I don’t. Mommy doesn’t have any piercings.”
But Tommy was insistent. “Yes, you do! I saw it!”
We let it slide. Kids say weird stuff all the time, right?
Except he kept repeating it.
Every time he saw Molly’s piercing: “Mommy has it.” While brushing his teeth. Playing with Legos. When I tucked him into bed, he pressed his finger into his own belly and said, “Just like Mommy.”
It burrowed under my skin.
“Patrick,” I asked one night, “has Tommy ever seen a belly-button piercing on me?”
He laughed without looking up from his laptop. “Uh, no? Unless there’s something you haven’t told me.”
“He keeps saying it,” I pushed. “About Molly’s piercing.”
Patrick shrugged. “He probably saw you in a bikini once and got confused. Don’t overthink it.”
Everyone had the same word for me later: paranoid.
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