Found: One Son

by Judith Arnold

  “It takes more than a few days to build a relationship,” she reminded him. The night was balmy, heavy with a premonition of summer. The grass smelled like summer, too, green and tangy. The foliage on the trees was thickening. In just a few weeks the school term would be over-and this year, maybe she wouldn’t have to do any private tutoring. One summer-school class would tide her over, now that Michael was available to help out with her finances.

  She was growing dependent on him, and it alarmed her. She depended on him to keep her budget from collapsing into debt, and to share adult conversations with, and to hold her at night. Before he’d come back into her life, finances had been her biggest worry—and yet of all the needs he met, the financial support struck her as the least important. Even the sex, while splendid, wasn’t the best thing about having him around.

  It was the conversations. She loved talking to him. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been craving adult company. Jeffrey was still the center of her universe, but it was so gratifying, after listening to one of his long-winded descriptions of a Matchbox car crash at school or Adam’s disgusting lunches or, more often now, the significance of the Red Sox in the grand scheme of things, to be able to unwind with Michael over a glass of wine or a soft drink and talk about the day’s newspaper stories or her concerns about a student, or the latest policy proposal the Oak Hill School principal had cooked up. Or Michael’s work. He didn’t talk about it much, but what little he shared fascinated her. He was currently working out a strategy for a California firm that wanted to market its snack-food product in Latin America. Michael was writing a report on how to approach the import officers in each of three countries, how to get the U.S. ambassadors involved, which markets showed the most promise and which were better avoided. “Lots of money exchanges hands in these deals,” he told Emmie. “One of my jobs is to make sure the executives I’m working for are getting the money into the right hands.”

  She felt as if a room had been opened in her brain, one locked for five years. It was musty and dusty, but Michael had shoved open the window and let in the sun-brightened air. Emmie could talk about grown-up things with a grown-up, and it was invigorating.

  So she was delighting in adult conversation. But the novelty in Michael’s life-juvenile conversations with Jeffrey-was apparently not so invigorating. “All he wants to talk about is baseball,” Michael complained. “I feel like I’ve unleashed a monster.”

  Emmie chuckled and propped her bare feet up on the picnic-table bench. “The only monster he knows about is the Green Monster,” she said, using the nickname of the green outfield wall in Fenway Park. “He used to be friends with an invisible monster in that tree over there—” she gestured toward the crab-apple tree “—but now all he thinks about is baseball.”

  “Is it me, then? Do you think if I left he would find something else to talk about?”

  She shot him a quick look. Did he want to leave? Did he think Jeffrey’s obsession with baseball was bad? “Kids sometimes get fixated on things. It will pass.”

  Michael used his finger to trace a line in the condensation misting the surface of his glass. “I want to talk to him about other things. I want to get to know him, but I just don’t feel it’s happening. Maybe...” He measured her with his gaze. “Maybe if I told him I was his father—”

  “No,” she said quickly.

  Michael frowned. “I don’t see why you’re so dead set against it. He sees me here all the time now. I’m at the table for breakfast. I’m there for dinner. I’ve got my work set up in the spare bedroom. He’s probably figured out where I’m sleeping.”

  “He doesn’t know what our sleeping arrangements mean,” she argued, then took a deep breath. She knew it was too soon to tell Jeffrey that Michael was his father. What she didn’t know was why it was too soon. She just knew it was.

  If she told Michael it was because she still didn’t trust him, he would be hurt. And she wasn’t sure that was the real reason anyway. She did trust him. She wouldn’t have let him move into her house if she didn’t.

  She trusted him because she wanted to, because trusting him brought so much joy into her life-because it brought him into her life and kept him there. She had decided she was prepared to risk her heart on him. But Jeffrey... She wasn’t going to take risks with her son’s heart.

  “You’re too impatient, Michael,” she finally said, then sipped some lemonade to cool her throat. “Everything will come in its time.”

  “You’re afraid for him to know, aren’t you?” he said.

  She took another long sip, trying not to react visibly to the accuracy of his guess. “I’m afraid for us all,” she admitted. “Something terrible happened to you five years ago.” Closing her eyes, she pictured the scar on his shoulder. The first time they’d made love, she’d felt it with her fingertips. The following morning, she’d seen it with her eyes. It wasn’t big or ugly, but it was there, a permanent reminder that violence had tom Michael from her, and torn him apart inside.

  “Do you think something terrible will happen to me again?” he asked. “Do I have a target on my back?”

  “You made choices,” she reminded him. “You weren’t just an innocent target. You made choices, and what happened to you was a result of that.”

  “I’m making different choices now.”

  She sighed. “If it works out, we’ll tell Jeffrey. Please give me enough time to be sure.”

  “All right,” Michael said, relenting. She knew he wasn’t pleased, but he was backing off to show his respect for her—or else because he didn’t feel like arguing. He rose from his chair, moved behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs digging into her nape. “Just tell me how to talk to him,” he asked as he massaged the taut muscles at the base of her skull. “Tell me what to say so I don’t feel so out of my depth with him.”

  “As long as you talk about baseball, he’ll be happy.”

  Michael snorted. “What else does he talk about? With you, I mean.”

  She sighed again, this time from pleasure, and bowed her head so he could dig deeper with his fingertips. “Things he’d never talk to you about,” she said, trying to keep her mind focused on the conversation while her body melted into a deeply relaxed state.

  “Like what?”

  “Like things that frighten him. Or classmates who bother him.”

  “Why can’t he talk to me about those things?”

  “He hardly knows you, Michael. And anyway, you’re a man. He idolizes you. He’s not going to tell you he’s afraid of lightning.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yes. But don’t tell him I told you.”

  Michael pressed his fingers into her shoulders, working out the knots. “When I was a kid, I was afraid of lightning, too.”

  “Really?”

  “I told my father.”

  “And what did he do?”

  Michael’s hands went still, and his voice sounded colder when he said, “He told me I was a big boy and I ought to act like one. He told me only babies were afraid of lightning.” He resumed rubbing her shoulders, more gently this time, apparently distracted by his memory. “I wouldn’t do that to Jeffrey.”

  “He doesn’t know that He doesn’t know you well enough to trust you with his fears.”

  “That’s my point. How can I get him to know me well enough?”

  “Be patient, Michael,” she repeated, pushing herself to her feet and facing him. “You want too much.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, then hugged her close and kissed her lips. “I want too much,” he whispered.

  THE WEATHER TURNED HOT and thick, a premature taste of summer. All weekend, the air was muggy and stagnant and dense clouds slid across the sky. Michael spent both days with Jeffrey and Emmie, observing their interplay, envying the ease with which they talked and joked with each other. Emmie was right, of course-Michael couldn’t expect to build a rapport with the boy instantly, especially since he knew so little about kids to begin with.


  But he wanted it

  Saturday morning, they went to the supermarket together. Emmie had warned Michael that the outing wouldn’t be fun, but he’d insisted on accompanying them, determined to learn everything he could about Jeffrey. What he learned in the Super Stop-&-Shop was that Jeffrey took delight in darting up and down the crowded aisles, scooping junk food and cookies from the shelves and tossing them into Emmie’s cart, whereupon she would pluck Jeffrey’s contributions out of the pile and replace them on the shelves. “Why don’t you strap him into the seat?” Michael suggested, noticing that other people had their children secured in the wagon seats.

  “He hates it,” Emmie said. “He’s gotten too big to fit in comfortably.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t be running around like that. He’ll get hurt, or hurt someone else.”

  Emmie shot him a look of annoyance. “Thanks for the input. Maybe you’d like to chase after him and hold his hand while I finish shopping.”

  Michael caught up with Jeffrey in the deli aisle. At the end of the aisle stood a murky tank of water with live lobsters lolling inside. “Look,” Michael said, figuring the ugly blue creatures would interest Jeffrey. “See the lobsters?”

  Jeffrey was underwhelmed. “I wanna go see the Red Sox.”

  “We’re in the supermarket now,” Michael said unnecessarily.

  “I wanna go to Fenway Park,” Jeffrey said, just as unnecessarily.

  The shopping took an hour. “Saturday’s always the worst day to shop,” Emmie muttered as they waited in an interminable line to pay for their groceries. “Everyone who works during the week comes here on Saturday.”

  Michael nodded. Not just everyone who worked during the week was there, but most of them seemed to have brought an obstreperous child or two with them. He recalled his shock the afternoon he’d entered Jeffrey’s preschool. Why were kids so noisy? Why did they shriek when talking in a normal voice would be much more effective? Children never shrieked in his neighborhood when he was growing up. All the kids used to hang out outdoors, playing games like baseball or pickup basketball that didn’t require shrieking. When they got older, they kept their voices down, maintaining a low profile so their elders wouldn’t catch them sneaking smokes in the far corner of the playground. By the time they were teenagers, their cars were much louder than they were.

  He wanted to connect with Jeffrey. He also wanted to teach the boy how to turn down the volume, or else to teach himself how to tolerate the kid’s high-decibel energy. As Emmie deftly negotiated the crowded parking lot with her shopping cart and her rambunctious son, he acknowledged how very much he had to learn about being a parent. Maybe she was right not to want Jeffrey to know he was Jeffrey’s father yet—not because he had any intention of abandoning them, but because it might be easier for Jeffrey to accept him as a dad if he was a bit more at home in the role.

  In the afternoon, they attended a free movie at the town library, and in the evening dinner at a restaurant that featured pizza and an indoor play area for children. The pizza was mediocre and the noise level in the room was nerve shattering. Michael began to wonder if Emmie had plotted this day for the specific purpose of making him go deaf.

  He did his best to smile. He gamely ate his pizza and watched as Jeffrey scampered through the maze of tubes and slides and ladders in the play area. He visualized the bottle of aspirin in his toiletries bag back at Emmie’s house and imagined swallowing two pills, or maybe four, or a dozen—whatever it took to make the throbbing between his temples fade.

  “Is this a test?” he asked Emmie at one point, having to shout above the din.

  “A test?” She pulled a string of mozzarella from her plate and popped it into her mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “Baptism by fire. You dragged me through the supermarket and made me sit through Mary Poppins, and now this. Is it a test, to see if I can stand living with Jeffrey?”

  She smiled uncertainly. “This is what living with Jeffrey is like,” she said. She didn’t seem to be shouting at all, yet he had no trouble hearing her. “Do you think you can’t stand it?”

  “It’s...too loud,” he said.

  Her smile relaxed slightly. “Children are loud.” She reached across the table and patted his hand. “Don’t expect everything to happen at once, Michael. You’ll get used to it if you want to. If you don’t...” She let her hand come to rest on the table barely an inch from his, but that inch felt like a mile. “If you don’t want to get used to it, you won’t.”

  “I want to,” he assured her, trying to persuade himself, as well. He had to want this. Jeffrey was his son. “Maybe if I could just have a little time with him on my own—away from circuses like this,” he added, gesturing toward the maniacal children squawking and giggling and dangling by their knees from the bars of the climbing apparatus in the center of the restaurant. “The only thing he wants to talk about with me is baseball. Maybe I could take him to a ball game.”

  Emmie looked intrigued but mildly doubtful. “Just by yourself?”

  “Him and me. No screaming kids.”

  “Just screaming adults,” she joked, although she still appeared dubious. Then she shrugged. “If you want to give it a try...”

  He bought Red Sox tickets for Wednesday night. Just two, for him and Jeffrey. He asked if Emmie would go with them, but she declined.

  “It’s hot and sticky out,” she said. The heat wave had continued, giving the region an August feel although June was still days away. “And I’m really not that big a baseball fan. Besides, this is your chance to go one-on-one with him.”

  He wasn’t ready to go one-on-one with Jeffrey. What, other than baseball, would they talk about? Would he have to listen to one of Jeffrey’s interminable monologues about toy-car collisions at school? What if he started to whine? What if he cried for his mother?

  Obviously Emmie trusted Michael enough to let him solo with Jeffrey. Or else maybe she trusted Jeffrey not to fall apart with Michael. In either case, she was revealing a degree of trust he took pride in, even though he spent most of Wednesday worrying about how the evening would go.

  Emmie seemed utterly calm as she waved them off at around five that evening. She’d armed Michael with a map and handwritten directions to Fenway Park, told them to have fun and walked blithely into the house as Michael backed down the driveway to the street. She was probably thrilled to be done with them for a while, Michael thought churlishly. She would have a tranquil dinner, then relax with a book or a good TV show and not give a thought to Michael for the evening.

  It was his own impatience that had led to this, he conceded, glancing over his shoulder at Jeffrey, who sat strapped in his booster in the center of the backseat, wearing his Red Sox cap and clutching his baseball glove. “Is Mo Vaughn gonna be there?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” Who the hell knew if Mo Vaughn would be there? Who knew how Jeffrey might react if he wasn’t? Michael struggled to think of something else to discuss, something that wasn’t baseball. “Do you like hotdogs?”

  “Nope.”

  Great. What was he going to buy Jeffrey to eat?

  “Are you too hot?” Emmie had insisted that Jeffrey wear long pants, despite the muggy afternoon. She’d predicted that once the sun set the temperature would drop.

  “Nope.”

  “We’re going to be out past your bedtime,” Michael continued valiantly. “Does that bother you?”

  “Nope.”

  He gave up. “So, I bet you’re looking forward to seeing Mo Vaughn.”

  And Jeffrey was off, chattering nonstop about Mo Vaughn and the Red Sox and the curse of the banana, whatever that was.

  The stadium was pretty full for a weeknight, but not packed. Michael was glad. He didn’t want Jeffrey to be surrounded by rowdy yahoos drinking beer and making fools of themselves. A vendor approached, and Michael bought a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water for Jeffrey, who sat forward in his seat, his eyes as round as soup bowls as he surveyed the illuminated field. �
��Which one’s Mo Vaughn?” he asked. “You think someone’s gonna hit a ball over here? I could catch it if they did. I brought my glove.”

  Michael settled in for a long night. While Jeffrey ran at the mouth, Michael occasionally answered his questions about what was going on down on the field, but mostly he meditated on the demands of paternity. He’d never thought it would be easy, but he’d always assumed, on the basis of absolutely no experience, that when you became a father, parenting skills blossomed naturally inside you. He had never thought he’d have to work at them and exert himself to be a dad. Then again, he hadn’t given much thought to being a dad at all. It had been a remote idea, strictly hypothetical.

  There was nothing hypothetical about Jeffrey. He was warm and squirming next to Michael, smelling of popcorn and butter, sticky from the ice-cream pop Michael later bought him, sweaty from the heat and wired from the excitement. He was a real boy, and when Michael wasn’t suffering from abject dread about his ability to fulfill his role as a father, he was proud to think he’d had something, however trivial, to do with the creation of such a lively, cheerful, relentlessly noisy boy.

  “Who’s that guy? Who’s that one?” Jeffrey asked, pointing all around the field. “Which one’s the pitcher? I wanna be a pitcher when I grow up.”

  The game ended with a Red Sox win. Jeffrey left the stadium toting a pennant, the half box of popcorn he’d been unable to eat, the bottle from his water, a souvenir program and his glove. Although it was after ten, he was revved up, not the least bit sleepy. The air carried the scent of auto fumes and city grime mixed with the sour aroma of impending rain.

  “That was fun!” Jeffrey exclaimed, skipping because he apparently had too much energy to walk. “It was cool. When that guy slid into second, that was so cool. I wanna slide. Will you teach me how to slide, Michael?”

  “When you’re a little older,” Michael promised. Unlike Jeffrey, he was tired. He wished he didn’t have a half-hour drive ahead of him. He wasn’t in any danger of falling asleep at the wheel, but he knew Jeffrey would babble the whole way home, and the prospect didn’t thrill him. A man could be proud of his paternity and fatigued by it at the same time.