Avi: Mama, do only boys have wifes?
unusually long pause as I consider the best answer. do i use this moment to talk about the right to marriage? legaleeze and politics? or do i provide her the labels and hope that by the time she is grown, this right really will exist no matter where she lives. i opt for the latter.
Mama: No. When two women love each other, than can get married and call each other wife. If two men get married, they call each other husband. When a man and woman marry, they call each other husband and wife. And then there’s people like me and Dada who aren’t married at all so we don’t have a husband or wife.
Avi: Oh. (and she laughs. she finds this last part about J and I funny.)
and then we stop talking and listen to “The Fisherman and his Wife” in silence. a poor man badgered by his greedy wife who wants everything for nothing. they end up in a hovel after all.