by McLean, Jay
“It’s good to see you again,” she says. “Mia and the boys just went to the store quickly to grab some stuff for lunch.”
“The boys?”
“Benny and Joseph. I still call him a boy because sometimes he acts like a child.”
Chewing my lip, I nod once.
She settles her hands on her hips. “How are you feeling?”
I raise my eyebrows in question, and her smile turns sly. “I’m not here to make assumptions, Leo,” she says, holding both hands up in surrender, “but I questioned it the moment I got a good look at you.” She shakes her head, looks down at the space between us. “Joseph can be a little daft, but I won’t say anything.” Her eyes meet mine again. “So? How are you?”
I inhale as much air as I can handle, then let it out in a whoosh. “I’m kind of shitting my pants,” I tell her honestly. She laughs, so loud and carefree, I almost laugh with her. Instead, I show her my hands, reveal their trembling. “See?”
“Oh no,” she says, looking up at me, both her hands covering one of mine. “You have nothing to be worried about.” I stare down at our hands, and I let my mind wander to my mother and what she would do if she faced this same situation. Before I can dwell on it for too long, a truck pulls into the driveway. “You got this,” Tammy says, winking at me.
I’m rooted in my spot as I watch the two front doors of the truck push open. Mia steps out, and it’s her legs I notice first. Short denim cut-offs at one end and yellow Chucks on the other. Beside me, Tammy giggles. I turn to her, right before she makes a zipping motion with her fingers to her lips. “Not a word,” she whispers in a song, before making her way toward the truck.
I move toward Mia, my footsteps heavy. She greets me with a smile that I could get lost in for hours. And then she’s up on her toes, hugging me and planting a kiss on my cheek. She doesn’t say a word as she releases me to open the back door and unbuckle Benny from his car seat. I hold my breath, shove my hands in my pockets to hide their tremor.
“Benny, you remember Mama’s friend, Leo?” she asks him, taking his hand in hers.
I have dozens of photographs of the little boy in front of me, and none of them—not one—have even come close to bringing out the emotion that consumes me when I look right into his light brown eyes. “Hi, Benny,” I manage to say, my voice just above a whisper.
Benny looks up at me, then right back down as he takes a step back, hiding behind his mom. I glance at Mia, unable to hide my fear.
“We’ll get started on lunch,” Tammy calls, dragging Mia’s dad away.
Mia’s smiling at me, but it’s sad, and then she squats down so she and Benny are eye to eye. “What’s wrong, bud?” she asks, and his eyes convey something I don’t understand. She shifts closer, moving her ear to his mouth so he can whisper something to her, and I feel lost. Like an outsider—which is precisely what I am.
Mia smiles as she pulls away from Benny and looks up at me. “He says you’re sooooo tall,” she says through a giggle.
I force a smile and squat down, hoping it helps. “Better?”
Benny looks between Mia and me, his lips pressed in a line, and I realize that my worst fear is coming true. He hates me. “I, uh…” I rub the back of my neck. “I got you a present,” I say. “If it’s okay with your mom, I’d like to give it to you.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Mia says, standing to full height.
“I know. I wanted to,” I say, standing, too.
“Would you like to see what Leo got you?” Mia asks him, and he nods.
Mia said he smiles at everyone and everything, but he’s not smiling at me, and I’m not even going to sugar coat it—it hurts.
I grab the present from my truck, leaving the books where they are, and head over to the porch steps, where they sit, side by side, waiting. I sit down beside Benny with Mia on the other side of him. “Here you go, buddy,” I say, handing it to him.
“Thank you, sir,” he says quietly, and my frown deepens.
“You can call me Leo,” I say, pushing aside the hopes that he’ll call me Dad one day. If this interaction is anything to go by, that might take years. But, just like the railing on the porch, it’ll be worth the time and effort.
I glance up at Mia, who nods, reassuring, and then watches as Benny tears into the present, completely opposite to the way I would do it.
Not that it matters.
He holds the box in his hands, flipping it over, his eyebrows drawn before looking up at Mia. “What is it?” he asks her.
“It’s a rock tumbler,” I answer, carefully taking it from him and showing him the picture on the box. “You put rocks in there with some water and grit, and after a while it…” I trail off because Benny’s not even paying attention to a word I’m saying. He’s looking up at Mia, tugging on her arm, trying to get her attention.
Mia gives me a pitiful look before focusing on Benny. “Benny, you’re being very rude. Leo’s trying to—” He pulls on her arm again while stretching up to put his mouth to her ear. He whispers something I can’t quite hear, and Mia laughs and sighs at the same time. With an eye-roll, she says, “He wants to know if you’re the strongest man in the world.”
My lips twitch, my gaze moving from Mia to Benny. Pink stains his pale cheeks, so much like his mother, while he uses her arm to shield half his face. “Am I the strongest man you’ve ever seen?” I ask him, keeping my voice low.
Benny’s nod is slow as he comes out from his mother’s shadow.
“Well, that makes me the strongest man in your world, and that’s all that matters, right?”
Benny smiles, and it’s so much of everything all at once, I struggle to see straight. And then slowly, shyly, he reaches up, one finger pointed in the air, coming closer and closer, and I watch, breathless. He presses the tip of his finger to my bicep, poking at the muscle, and then he laughs. Full on, all out, laughs, his entire body shaking with him. I laugh, too, while Mia giggles. “You’re such a goofball, Benny!”
Mr. Kovács calls us in for lunch, and so we get up, my gift left discarded on the porch. We sit at the kitchen table—Mia’s dad on one end and Benny on the other. I sit beside Mia, opposite Tammy, and I let Mr. Kovács interrogate me. I knew it was coming, so I’m prepared when the questions begin. He asks about where I’m from, how I know Mia, and my career plans. When I tell him I’m currently at the police academy, he does that thing with his lips people do when they’re impressed—something that surprises me. “Law enforcement is a tough job, man. I sure as hell couldn’t do it.” He shakes his head, spearing a piece of lettuce with his fork. “You have my respect.” And then he does something weird. He offers me his fist for a bump. Mia mutters something resembling “Oh my god” under her breath when I tap his fist.
“Joseph likes to think he’s still in college,” Tammy offers with an eye-roll.
Mr. Kovács narrows his eyes at her. “We haven’t even hit forty yet, Tams.”
“Eat, Benny,” Mia says, and I trail my eyes to the little boy sitting at the end of the table, a fork in his hand. He doesn’t move. He’s looking in Mr. Kovács direction, but his stare is distant, something I’m more than familiar with.
“Benny? Where are you, Benny?” Tammy sings.
He doesn’t seem to hear her.
“We call this him rebooting.” Mr. Kovács chuckles. “He’ll snap out of it soon.”
Benny hasn’t blinked once.
“He does it all the time,” Mia tells me, voice so close I feel it spread through my entire body. “It’s like he—”
Benny blinks and then looks around with those big eyes of his. Everyone else at the table mock-cheers.
“There he is!” Mr. Kovács almost shouts, and I can’t help but smile as I look down at my plate. I’d spent many, many meal times doing the exact same thing. My parents called it checking out. I like rebooting better.
We continue to eat while Tammy tells us about her work in the garden and then, out of nowhere: “Leo?”
My eyes snap up to Benny’s, my heart pounding in my chest. “Yeah?”
“Did you know that semidetary rocks are the most common rocks on earth?”
Sedimentary, he means, and yes. Yes, I did. “I did not know that.”
He doesn’t react to my answer. He simply continues to pick at the salad on his plate.
I go back to my meal.
“Leo?”
My smile is ridiculous. “Yeah, bud?”
His head tilts, assessing me. “Do you have a favorite rock?”
Nodding, I wipe my mouth with the paper napkin before saying, “Topaz.”
“Why?”
I clear my throat. “Because it’s yellow.”
“Is yellow your favorite color?”
I nod. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue,” he replies.
“So… would your favorite rock be…” I squint, trying to recall. “Turquoise?”
His perfect little face lights up. “How did you know?”
“I guessed,” I say, smiling over at him.
Mia’s hand lands on my knee, and I glance at her quickly, noting the glassiness in her eyes.
“My bedrooms are all painted blue,” Benny tells me, and I focus all of me on all of him.
“They are? How many bedrooms do you have?”
“Four,” he says, holding up three fingers. “I have one in here and one in the barn and one at Papa’s condo and one at the apartment.” Wow. And the barn... I’d seen Mia coming out of there before, but I had no idea it was a proper livable space.
“Must be cool having all those rooms,” I say.
Benny shrugs, shoves a spoonful of food in his mouth. “Leo?” he says, and corn flies across the table.
Mia sighs. “No talking with your mouth full.”
Benny chews and chews and makes a show of swallowing. “Leo?” he says again, and the chuckle that comes out of me forms so deep in my chest, it’s a relief to get it out.
“Yes, bud?”
“Can I show you my room?” He’s already starting to get out of his chair.
“Maybe after lunch?” Mia tells him, pulling him back down.
Benny’s shoulders deflate. “Okay…” He pouts, and that look alone has me wanting to plead to see his room right now so that I don’t have to look at him like that. I pick up my fork for something else to focus on.
“Leo?”
I drop the fork. Who needs food, anyway? “Benny?”
“Will you help me set up the rock tumbler?”
Mia squeezes my knee.
“I would love to.”
“Leo?”
Swear, you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried. “Benny?”
“Why is yellow your favorite color?”
I suck in a breath. “Because it was my mom’s.”
He nods, his eyes wide. “Yellow’s my mom’s favorite color, too!”
I peek over at Mia. “Really?”
“Mama has a yellow bracelet. She says it’s septeminal.”
“Uh…”
Warmth fills my heart when Mia clarifies, “Sentimental.”
“That’s what I said!” Benny laughs. “You’re such a goofball, Mama!”
* * *
I spend the afternoon with Benny, setting up the rock tumbler and then walking around the farm, searching for rocks to put in there. Even though Mia assures him he already has tons of rocks in multiple buckets, bowls, and pockets of his clothes, Benny tells her they’re not the right ones. So Benny and I—with Mia following quietly behind—go on what he calls “an adventure.” We traipse through the grass with a bucket and shovel, and occasionally, he’ll look up at me with a grin that literally melts me and points down to the ground. “Right here!” he’ll say, so we dig. We dig and dig, and sometimes we’ll find nothing, so we’ll move on and keep walking.
He doesn’t talk a lot while we walk, which is fine. I wasn’t really much of a talker myself. But when he does talk, I listen. I listen more intently to the random things he’ll spout than I do anything and anyone else in my entire life. At one point, we come across a little creek, and he tells me that this is where they wash the rocks. So we wash the rocks. He could tell me this is where they peel off their skin and sacrifice themselves to the rock gods, and I’d do it. We wash as much dirt off the rocks as we can, and when I stand up, a bucket full of wet rocks in my grasp, he takes my free hand in his. His small hand grips the tips of my fingers, and I freeze. Every single muscle locks up. And then I just stare at him, this little boy who stares back at me. I don’t breathe. Don’t blink. And then he smiles, pushing his hand firmer in mine until we’re palm to palm. I wrap my fingers around his. Behind me, I hear Mia make a noise, but I don’t look at her. I look at our son, at his wide smile and his honey eyes, black hair, and the smattering of freckles on his nose. “Leo?” he says, pulling me from my daze as he continues to walk, dragging me with him. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“Would you like me to?” I ask, the words harsh against the emotion in my throat.
“Yes,” he says, and it’s such a simple, one-word response, but it means everything.
“Then I’ll stay,” I tell him.
Mia walks up beside him, taking his other hand in hers, and we head back to the house, the three of us together, and slowly, surely, the fear in my heart is replaced with the hope in my hands.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Mia
“Should we wake her?” Leo whispers, his breath fanning across my cheeks.
Benny giggles. “Scare her,” he replies, his voice low.
“No, we shouldn’t do that,” Leo murmurs. “Look at her. She’s so cute. And little.”
I try not to smile, but my lip twitches in response. After searching for rocks the entire afternoon, Leo stayed for dinner, and then dinner turned into a movie, all at the request of Benny. We settled in for the night in the barn’s living room and watched a documentary about rocks and minerals I’d seen close to three million times. The last thing I remember was all three of us sitting on the couch watching, and now I’m lying across the couch with a blanket over me, and I don’t know how this happened.
“Cute, little Mama,” Benny whispers, his small hand cupping my cheek. “WAKE UP, MAMA!”
My eyes snap open. “You little—” I try to reach for him, but he steps back, laughing. My eyes narrow as I get up. “Brush teeth and bed.”
Benny moans in protest but heads to the bathroom anyway.
A few minutes later, he’s in his bed, and I’m tucking him in while Leo busies himself in the kitchen. “Can we have breakfast at the diner tomorrow?” Benny asks through a yawn.
“Sure.”
“Leo too?” he asks.
I sigh, bringing the blankets up to his chin. “Leo drives a long way to be here, so—”
“I’ll be there!” Leo calls out, and I can’t help but laugh.
One eyebrow raised, I look down at Benny. “I guess we’ll see him tomorrow. You really like him, huh?”
Benny nods.
I whisper, “Can Mama tell you a secret?” Benny nods again, eyes wide, and I lean down, place my mouth to his ear, my words just for us. “I really like him, too.”
When I pull back, he’s smiling, his eyes closed, and so I kiss his cheek and leave the room, closing the door behind me. Leo’s standing just outside the door now, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He opens his mouth to speak, but I lift my hand to cover his lips. “Shh,” I say, ignoring the heat of his hands on my waist. I turn, practically in his arms, and stare at the door handle, waiting. Leo’s front is pressed to my back, warm and hard, and I try to ignore my body’s reaction to him. Tiny footsteps creep across the floor, and then the handle shifts. “Boo!” I shout, and Benny squeals, runs back to his bed, laughing as he puts the blankets over his head. “Goodnight, Benny,” I tell him.
“Night, Mama,” he calls.
“I love you, bud.”
“Love you!” he says, b
ut it comes out luhyoo—all one word.
I lean against the wall just outside the door with Leo in front of me, his hands on my hips, his eyes right on mine. We stay silent for a solid minute to make sure Benny isn’t getting up again. When I assume it’s safe, I lead him to the kitchen, rest against the counter, and ask, my arms crossed as I look down at the tiles, “How do you think it went?” Going by the smile that’s graced his lips for most of the day, I’m assuming it went well.
“A little rough at the beginning,” he says, then releases a heavy exhale. “But, God, Mia, he’s…” He trails off.
“Everything?” I ask, looking up at him.
He nods. “And then some.”
I bite down on my bottom lip, trying to comprehend all the emotions swarming through me. As far as first meetings go, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. But I’m scared, concerned about what it means and confused about where to go from here. “So… maybe we should make a schedule?” I offer, shifting my stare away from his, because he’s looking at me with heat in his eyes again. I’ve caught him doing it a few times throughout the day, stolen glances mixed with desire, and it’s hard not to want the same things he wants. But it would also be selfish. And it was fine when Benny was around and he was our buffer, but now it’s just us, and it’s almost too much. I clear my throat, reach for my phone on top of the microwave and pretend to go through my calendar just for something else to focus on that isn’t him and his eyes and the smirk, and I’m blushing.
Crap.
“Whatever works for you, we’ll make it happen,” I breathe out.
He takes a step forward, our feet almost touching. “Yeah?”
I nod, mindlessly scrolling through the dates on my calendar. “You’ve missed out on enough, and I want this for you and Benny. I want him to have you in his…” I trail off when Leo’s palm slides against my hip, his thumb stroking the bare skin between my shorts and top. A ragged breath falls out of me, and I try to refocus my thoughts. “What are you thinking? Like every other weekend?”
