by Nicole Baart
“How are the boys?” Parker finally asked. His voice was quiet, strained, as if it was difficult for him to form the words.
“They’re fine.” I glanced at the long spool of my son’s painting and offered, “Daniel is proving himself to be quite the artist.”
“Really? I thought he was going to be a scientist.”
“He’s a true Renaissance man.”
“Like Leonardo da Vinci—an artist and a scientist. Or maybe his fascination with biology will fade. He could be the next Grant Wood.”
“Who’s Grant Wood?” I asked, the question tumbling out.
“He painted American Gothic. You know, the Depression-era farmer and his daughter? the pitchfork?”
I’d seen parodies of that painting on everything from Green Acres to The Simpsons. As usual, I felt like an idiot for asking such a stupid question. To cover up for my cultural gaffe, I said, “Daniel is five, Parker. I don’t think he needs you to plot out the rest of his life.”
“I’m not plotting. I’m dreaming.”
I fought the urge to tell Parker he had no right to dream on Daniel’s behalf, to fantasize about his future. But I hadn’t called to pick a fight, and I reminded myself that I was doing this for my son, no matter the cost to myself. Instead of baiting Parker further, I put a steadying hand against my collarbone and forced myself to say, “I’m sorry about . . . what happened on the porch.”
“Me too.”
“Me too”? I hadn’t expected that. I opened my mouth to tell Parker that I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, but he beat me to the punch.
“I should have never just showed up like that. I know I put you in a really awkward spot.”
“You did,” I admitted, “but it wasn’t entirely your fault. Simon can be pretty convincing.”
I could almost hear the smile in Parker’s voice when he agreed: “He’s a charmer.”
My own faint smile bloomed in response. “Are we . . . talking?”
“I think that’s what they call this.”
“I mean, civilly.”
“We’re trying.”
“Good for us.”
“Julia?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you call?”
“I think we need to work this out,” I said carefully, measuring out each syllable as if it mattered much. “For Daniel’s sake, I think we need to find a way to . . . coexist.”
“Me too,” Parker whispered.
“But we need to set up some boundaries. Some guidelines for interaction.”
“Guidelines for interaction? You make it sound like I’m being admitted on a trial basis.”
“You are.”
Parker sighed. “Okay. Fair enough.”
“And . . .” I paused, wondering if I should tell him the rest of it or if my big news could wait. But there were enough secrets and lies between us; if I truly wanted to give this a shot for Daniel’s sake, I had to come clean with everything. “And I need you to know that I’m getting married. In June. To the man you ran into at the farm that day.”
“Congratulations.” Parker cleared his throat and said it again. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“Will . . . will your fiancé want to . . .”
“Adopt Daniel?” I finished. “We’ve talked about it, but Michael doesn’t have any definite plans. At least, not yet. I guess that’s something we’ll have to work out.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeated. For the first time all night I felt confident, sure. “I think we could make this work.”
“Me too,” Parker agreed. But when he hung up, he didn’t say good-bye. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. A moment later the line went dead, and I was left to wonder if the call was dropped or if Parker had severed our connection.
Just when I was trying to repair it.
A Matter of the Heart
When I told Daniel that Parker was coming to visit, he nearly jumped out of his skin. I had waited to tell him until I knew for sure that Parker would keep his word, because after our phone conversation was cut short, I was left to wonder once again if Daniel’s father would simply fade back out of our lives. But he called a couple days later and timidly asked if he could come up on Saturday to spend some time with the boys.
I agreed.
“He’s coming?” Daniel squealed. “Parker’s going to visit us?”
“On Saturday,” I confirmed. “He’ll come up around noon and we’ll all have lunch together here; then he’d like to take you sledding.”
“Sledding? Are you kidding me?”
I laughed. It was like I had just told him he was going to Disney World. “Honey, it’s just to the golf course hill. Nothing fancy.”
But Daniel was already gone. And although I wanted to resent his infatuation with Parker, I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling as my son ran through the house, screaming for Simon.
Remarkably, Daniel wasn’t the only person excited about Parker’s impending visit. In the days leading up to the weekend, Simon seemed to relax, to loosen around the edges. I even caught him smiling once or twice and laughing at Daniel’s ridiculous five-year-old jokes instead of barely concealing his annoyance.
“Are you looking forward to Saturday?” I asked him one evening as he got ready for bed.
Simon flashed me a quick, wary look. “Yeah,” he said slowly. It was almost as if he was afraid to admit it.
Since things were calm between us, I didn’t want to pry. But his answer took me by surprise, and I just had to ask. “Is it because of Parker? or because you’re going sledding?”
“Sledding,” he coughed out and disappeared down the hallway to his room.
“I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun!” I called after him, trying to muster up some enthusiasm. His response left me unsettled. It felt like there was a family secret I wasn’t privy to, and I existed in my own home like a stranger, an outsider who was left to wonder why everyone was smiling.
Even Grandma seemed in on it. She was quick to notice my hesitation when it came to Parker, and though she seemed almost amused at the duplicity of my on-again-off-again reaction to his reinstatement in our lives, she appeared eager to support our fumbling endeavors. Almost too eager.
“Maybe you should go with them this afternoon,” she suggested on Saturday morning. We were buttering buns for a quick lunch of barbecued beef sandwiches and potato chips. “Parker might need an extra hand with the boys.”
“They’re not babies,” I argued. “They practically take care of themselves. I think Parker can handle it.”
“But he’s not used to kids,” Grandma reminded me. “He might not know what Daniel is capable of or overestimate Simon’s ability to—”
“Fine,” I cut in. “You’re right.” It was hard to discount the evidence of Parker’s lack of parental expertise. There was his unannounced visit, his categorical acceptance of Simon’s invitation, the fact that he brought along a puppy—even if it was his own—without questioning the appropriateness of the gesture . . . Grandma was right. Leaving the boys in his hands for an entire afternoon was just asking for trouble. Especially on the steep hills of the golf course. Especially armed with inner tubes and toboggans.
“I’ll go along,” I conceded, noting the air of satisfaction that settled around my grandmother like a soft fragrance. “Why don’t you come too? You could sit in the clubhouse with a cup of coffee and enjoy the festivities.”
Grandma patted my arm. “No, you kids just go. Since the house is going to be quiet, I might take a nap.”
“You feeling okay?”
“A little bug.” Grandma brushed off my concern, wiping it away with long, easy strokes as she smeared butter on both sides of the last bun. She tucked the roll back into the bag and secured it with a twisty tie. “You want to peel some carrots?”
“Sure,” I said, “but while I’m doing it, I want to hear more about this bug. Do you need to go in?”
“To my doc
tor? It’s just the flu.”
“You have the flu?”
“No.” Grandma shook her head quickly. “I’m just feeling a little under the weather. Achy, tired, chilled . . . You know.”
“How long has this been going on?” I paused as I bent over the vegetable drawer of our refrigerator and studied her face. Grandma was no liar, but I could tell when she was stretching the truth.
“A couple days.”
Her eyes slid away from mine when she said it. I knew her so-called flu had been going on for longer than that. “How long?” I asked again.
“A week or so.”
“Two?”
“Maybe.”
I yanked the bag of carrots out of the fridge and heaved the door closed. “Grandma,” I chided, “you need to see your doctor.”
“For a little virus?”
“You don’t know that you have a virus.”
“My dear, when you’ve been around for as long as I have, you get to know your body. I have a winter bug. I’ll be fine.”
She sounded so sure of herself, but I couldn’t quiet the voice inside my head that distrusted her easy explanation. Press her, I thought. Make her listen. But as wise and wonderful as my grandmother was, she was also stubborn. I didn’t have to speculate about where my greatest strength and weakness came from, nor did I have to continue questioning her to learn that as far as her health was concerned, her lips were sealed.
* * *
Parker arrived right on time. In fact, he knocked on the door exactly one minute before noon, our agreed-upon hour of rendezvous. I glanced at the clock on the wall and wondered if he had intentionally sped up and slowed down on the two-hour drive or if he had stood on the porch for a couple of minutes so that his entrance would be punctual, precise.
I was grateful that Daniel and Simon were waiting at the door so I didn’t have to be the one to welcome Parker back into our house. It had been three weeks since we had last seen him. Since he had shown up out of the blue, bearing a puppy and nearly ruining everything by running into Michael.
Michael. Just the thought of my future husband made me fold my lower lip between my teeth. I was startled by the faint taste of metal on my tongue, a reminder that I needed to break the nasty nervous habit of lip biting. But it was subconscious, and as long as Michael didn’t know about Parker, I knew I was destined to keep doing it. Grandma had warned me that it was past time to fill in my fiancé about the reintroduction of Patrick Holt into my life, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. At least, not over the phone. That sort of serious conversation deserved face-to-face contact, at the very least.
But I didn’t have time to think about that now. Parker was in my mudroom, unlacing his snowy boots and laughing with my kids.
In less than a minute they had all spilled into the kitchen, a trio of shoving, laughing boys who seemed far too at ease with each other to betray the infancy of their untried relationships. All the same, there was something endearing about the easy way they delighted in each other’s company, the almost-coltish play as they pushed and pulled, half-wrestling, half-embracing.
“Hi, Parker,” I said as I put the last plate on the table.
He had Simon and Daniel in matching headlocks and looked up at me with a sheepish grin. “Hi, Julia. It’s nice to see you again.”
I should have said, You too, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to. Though I appreciated what he did for my boys, how he made them feel, it was hard for me to separate our history from this more recent, happier plotline. I simply wasn’t there yet, and I didn’t know if I would ever be.
“You’re just in time,” I told him stiffly. “Lunch is ready.”
“Smells delicious.” Parker sniffed the air and released his hold on the boys. “You’d better go wash your hands,” he told them. “Something tells me your paws are far from clean.”
“You too!” Daniel shouted, taking him by the hand.
I was grateful that my son questioned Parker’s cleanliness. I wasn’t comfortable with the thought of being alone with him in the kitchen, even if it was for only a few minutes.
Our shared meal was uneventful but far from peaceful. Hearing Daniel and Simon giggle and talk over each other and make crazy plans for their afternoon of outdoor fun was enough to make me forget all about my discomfort in Parker’s presence. I think even Grandma regretted her decision to stay home as the boys continued to strategize more and more elaborate feats of daring.
“Be careful,” she warned, the wrinkles in her forehead deepening in worry. But the boys weren’t paying attention, so she gave me a hard look filled with meaning. A look I took to mean, It’s on your shoulders. Wasn’t everything?
When we got to the sledding hill, it had just started to snow, a soft, light curtain of flurries that made filigree patterns in the sky like a sheet of gauzy crochet. The parking lot was nearly empty, and the hill all but abandoned, I assumed because parents were worried about another storm. It was perfect. We had the place to ourselves and a fast-accumulating layer of fresh snow to gentle every fall.
I stood at a distance as Parker unloaded a cache of sledding equipment from the trunk of his car, a stockpile of sleds and disks so new, they still had the price tags on.
“Did you buy these just for today?” I whispered as he handed Simon a molded piece of plastic that looked like a cross between a snowboard and a spaceship.
“Does it matter?” he muttered back.
“Well, you didn’t have to do that. The boys have sleds. . . .” But I doubted that he heard a word I said. The three of them were each armed with their weapon of choice, and before I could issue my favorite “Don’t do anything stupid” speech, Simon let out a whoop and made a mad dash for the top of the hill. Daniel giggled and followed, with Parker only steps behind.
I watched as they launched, one by one, over a barely visible edge of white on white. There were three puffs of snow like subtle explosions of flour and three rowdy, boyish cries of elation. Then they were gone.
Alone in the golf course parking lot, I raised my palms to the sky and watched snowflakes collect on my mittens. The crystals fell in arabesque patterns, gathering in concert to rise like fairy-tale castles from the dark contours of my palms. They were all the same, I decided. Castles made of sand and snow. They were pretty, but they didn’t last. They never did.
I knew it was a matter of the heart. That this careful construction of imaginary landscapes was a wild, secret thing. Days like today were a sanctuary, a magical world where anything seemed possible but nothing truly was. As I watched the turrets slowly take shape in my hands, I realized that we did this to ourselves. Our searching souls pursued happy endings. And the heart was capable of great and deceiving beauty.
I sighed and brushed my palms together, loosening the snow, ruining the fantasy. Suddenly I was exhausted and sad, concerned that the daydream my boys were experiencing was destined to be short-lived. It would end in heartbreak. How could it not?
The worst part was, I was encouraging it.
By the time they trekked back up the hill, I was morose. I had convinced myself that reaching out to Parker was a huge mistake, a colossal blunder that I might spend the rest of my life trying to overcome. But the boys were immune to my mood, and when Daniel saw me still leaning against Parker’s car, he came screeching across the snow.
“You have to come down with us!” he yelled even though he was standing right in front of me.
“I don’t know, honey. I don’t want to make you miss a single turn.”
“You won’t have to,” Parker said, coming up behind Daniel and putting a gloved hand on his shoulder. “I bought four sleds.”
“Four? But you were supposed to take the boys alone. I only decided to come along this morning.”
Parker lifted his shoulder as if to shrug off the implications of my words. “Always be prepared.”
“Here, Mom.” Daniel handed over his sled and raced around me to the gaping trunk of the car. He lifted o
ut a final, flat disk and jumped to close the latch. But he couldn’t quite reach it.
“I got it, buddy,” Parker said. And without warning he leaned in and brushed past me to shut the trunk.
I don’t think he realized how close we would be when he slanted toward me to slam the latch home. How we would, for the briefest of seconds, be connected. Blessedly, it was all over in a flash, a mere instant of contact, but when Parker backed away, I was dizzy with the warm memory of his breath on my cheek, the weight of his chest against mine. Michael was all that I knew, all that I remembered, and I was shaken by my own reaction to Parker’s proximity.
“Uh, sorry about that,” he mumbled, as red-cheeked as I must have been.
But my son was oblivious to the tension between his mother and his beloved friend. “Let’s go sledding!” Daniel bellowed. He poked us both with his sled, prodding us in turn until we left the car behind and led the way to where Simon was waiting, legs spread wide and arms crossed against his chest. King of the hill. King of the snow castle we insisted on building.
I blinked snowflakes from my eyelashes and determined to wipe my mind clean, at least for the afternoon. No more worries about Michael and Parker, about impossible dreams or awkward moments. Today was not about the heart. It was about having fun.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
* * *
“Grandma, we’re home!” The moment we stepped in the door, Daniel announced our arrival with such gusto, it was as if we had been gone for weeks instead of hours. “It was awesome!”
“Stop shouting,” I scolded him. “Hang up your gear and go find her if you want to talk about your adventure.”
“I can’t get my snow pants off,” he complained.
Of course he couldn’t. They were bunched around his ankles, tangled on the Velcro straps of his drenched boots.
“You have to take your boots off first,” I told him. “Like Simon. Watch how Simon does it.”
My brother was already stripped down to his street clothes, coat and snow pants hung on his hook and mittens and hat positioned over the heat register for efficient drying. It had been a while since he had taken the time to be so conscientious, and I wanted to give him a hug for not abandoning everything in a pile on the floor. Instead, I winked when he caught my eye. Though he didn’t exactly smile in return, I believed he stood just a little straighter.
