by Maggie Wells
“Thanks,” Aiden lisped, his swollen upper lip curling into a sneer-like smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, darting a glance at Colm.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Aiden said, wagging his head emphatically.
“Oh. Right.” The young woman laughed. “Well, I’ll see you Monday, then.” She smiled and backed out of the curtained cube. “His backpack is under the bed.” Turning her attention to Aiden, she waved. “Enjoy your pancakes, okay?”
“I will.” Aiden sent his teacher off with a cheery waggle of his fingers and returned his attention to the ice pop.
As always, Colm marveled at his son’s resilience. He reached for his phone to call the school and his office. No service. No wonder it had finally stopped buzzing.
“Hey, bub?”
“Yeah?” Aiden looked up. With his upper lip swollen into a cockeyed sneer, the blindingly white square of gauze taped over his right eyebrow, and the frozen stick in his hand like a microphone, the kid looked like some kind of a miniature Elvis impersonator.
“What happened on the slide?”
His son turned his head and his gaze dropped to the rapidly liquefying tube in his hand. “Julissa pushed me.”
“Julissa did?” Colm dropped into the guest chair and scooted a few inches closer to the bed. “I thought you and Ju were friends.”
Aiden didn’t meet his eyes. “We are.”
“Did you say something to make her mad?”
A red flush flared in Aiden’s cheeks and his head jerked up. “I didn’t say nothing!”
“Anything,” Colm corrected. “You didn’t say anything to her.”
But the lesson was lost on Aiden, who returned to sucking the last of the frozen treat from the plastic to avoid further conversation. He gently patted the boy’s leg to assure them both all was well. And everything was. Ish. His boy was in one piece. A little banged up, but no guy escapes childhood without a few bumps and bruises. He waited, taking the time Aiden spent drawing each drop of sticky sweetness from the wrapper to try to bring himself into line. Not an easy task, considering this incident was the cherry on top of a truly fucked up twenty-four hours.
At last, he took the hollowed out husk of the freezer pop from Aiden’s sticky hand and dropped the wrapper into the small wastebasket. He’d barely sat down when the kid ambushed him.
“Do you kiss girls?”
Colm blinked in stupefaction as his ass dropped into the seat. “Do I what?”
“Kiss girls,” Aiden repeated, his eyes narrowing.
“Is that what happened with Julissa? You tried to kiss her?”
“Jamie says his dad kisses girls all the time.”
Colm chuckled. “Haven’t I always told you we don’t do what Uncle James does?”
“He said you do, too,” Aiden accused.
“Do what?”
“Kiss girls.” The boy spit the words out as if they were contaminated.
“Is that what you were doing? Trying to kiss Julissa?” Colm persisted.
Aiden wriggled on the edge of the bed, drawing his bony little body up in indignation. “Do you? Do you kiss girls?”
“This isn’t about me, it’s about you.” Colm raised an eyebrow. “You can’t go around kissing girls who don’t want to be kissed. That’s how you get your block knocked off.”
The curtain swung open and they both jumped.
“Truer words never spoken,” a young man in a white coat answered jubilantly. He turned to Colm and offered his hand. “I’m Dr. Harby.”
Colm rose from his chair and took the man’s proffered hand. “Colm Cleary.”
The younger man smiled conspiratorially, then turned his attention to the patient. “Kissing girls is fun, but dangerous.” The doctor tossed the chart onto the bed as a nurse appeared in the opening to the cubicle, a sterile pack in her hands. Smiling down at Aiden, Dr. Harby chucked the boy’s chin and started to remove the square of gauze. “Careful, Nurse Amy, we have a pirate here.”
“Ooh, I love pirates,” the nurse cooed.
Dr. Harby pulled a smirky face. “Sure, they all say they do, but you try to get one teensy kiss, and blammo!” He raised his chin and squinted at the cut through his glasses. “Yeah, not too deep, Dad. I think we’ll put a little scotch tape on there and the two of you should be able to get to the evening’s marauding.”
“What’s ma-raw-ding?” Aiden asked, his gaze darting from the doctor, to Colm, and back again.
Dr. Harby took the small strip of surgical adhesive the nurse handed him, carefully pinched the skin together, and applied the bandage. “The usual. Pillaging, plundering, trying to steal kisses from girls.”
Nurse Amy gasped in mock horror. “You wouldn’t! A nice boy like you?”
Aiden giggled and slid a sly look in Colm’s direction. “My daddy does.”
Stunned but pleased by the lightening of tone, Colm raised both hands to ward off further accusations. “I have never plundered anything in my life, and even if I had, you have no proof.”
Aiden laughed again, pointing a grubby finger at his nurse. “Kiss Nurse Amy, Daddy,” he crowed.
“Whoa. Ease up, Buccaneer,” Dr. Harby chided, grasping the squirming boy by the shoulders and planting him where needed him. “I need you to hold still for a few more minutes.”
Colm shook his head and nodded to the young woman’s gloved hand. “I don’t think Nurse Amy would like people trying to kiss her without asking.” He shot the nurse an apologetic smile. “Like I said, you can’t go around kissing people willy-nilly, bub.”
As if a switch had been thrown, Aiden’s dark eyes turned somber. “Did you kiss Emma’s mommy?”
Licking his lips, Colm shifted uncomfortably. He could actually feel the doctor and nurse not looking at him, which was almost worse than his kid’s unwavering stare. The boy needed to grow up to be a prosecutor or something. Then, he remembered he didn’t have to evade the question. He could tell the truth. It wasn’t the truth he and Aiden had thought it was, but technically…
“No. I have never kissed Emma’s mommy,” he stated unequivocally.
Aiden’s eyes narrowed, but Colm refused to break the connection. Even though he was sure he heard Nurse Amy mutter, “Poor Emma’s mommy,” under her breath.
Dr. Harby placed the last strip over the cut and surveyed his work. After a moment, he nodded gravely and announced, “Nurse, I think this patient will live.”
Nurse Amy’s cheekbones nearly obscured her eyes. She pressed a gloved hand to her chest as if to calm her heart. “Oh, thank goodness you saved him, Doctor.”
Peeling off his latex gloves, he gave an exaggerated shrug. “Yes, well, I am highly skilled with all forms of adhesives. Broke my mom’s favorite vase in the fourth grade and glued the pieces together perfectly. She never would have known if I hadn’t stuck my fingers together, too.”
Aiden giggled and Colm gave a relieved chuckle as the doctor turned to face him.
“Amy will get you all lined out here.” The doctor nodded to Aiden. “I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do for the kissing bandit over there.”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Harby smiled and scooped the chart up from the bed. “See you later, Aiden. Try to keep your lips to yourself, okay? Much safer. Trust me.”
The nurse bustled about, gathering a small kit of wound supplies and putting together the necessary discharge paperwork. After saying good-bye and thank you to Nurse Amy, the two Cleary men strapped into the car. Colm exhaled long and loud. Aiden’s stomach gurgled. Colm snickered as he glanced into the rearview mirror. “Hungry, huh?”
“I missed snack.”
Colm nodded. “I think we need mega-meals.”
“Yes! Burger Boy!” Thrusting both fists into the air, Aiden executed a little victory dance at the thought of sc
oring dinner at the fast food restaurant with the largest children’s play land in the area.
Colm’s mind whirred as he navigated to the restaurant. He’d always reserved trips to Burger Boy as a splurge. Not because the place was expensive, but because eating there cut a little too close to eating in the center ring of a circus for Colm’s tastes. He repressed a shudder at the thought of all those sweaty bodies crammed into what looked like a hamster trail. Naturally, the place was like crack for kids. But, by giving in, he’d get Aiden fed and keep him occupied while he returned the calls and messages accumulated on his phone.
The line at the counter was surprisingly short, considering how many little hellions ran loose in the glassed-in playground. Nearly every table in the place was taken. Most were occupied by abandoned trays and solitary men staring at their cell phones. Colm groaned inwardly as the situation swam into focus.
This was Friday evening. These were weekend dads.
The Saturdaddies.
That’s what Monica said the women in the park called them. He’d wanted to snap at her, tell her he wasn’t a weekend dad, but a full-time dad. The only parent on duty twenty-four-seven. The one who was there. All. Of. The Time.
He sat at the table, eating like an automaton as Aiden wolfed his meal down as fast as he possibly could. Colm admonished him to chew once or twice, but his mind was otherwise occupied. Frankly, he couldn’t help observing his fellow Burger Boy inmates and wondering what being able to pick up and drop off his parental responsibility might feel like.
He couldn’t imagine.
And from the expressions on most of the dads’ faces, they never thought they’d be here, either. Most watched their children play attentively. Some wearing such stark looks of longing, Colm felt compelled to glance away.
Part-time dads.
In all honesty, he’d thought about these guys the same way. Watching them, the stereotyping made him feel ashamed. Most of these guys probably hadn’t wanted to be separated from their children, maybe not even their children’s mother. But many of them ended up on the short end of the visitation stick. Though progress had been made, the courts, and society in general, favored the mother unless the woman opted out.
The way Colm saw it, there seemed to be more guys like him these days. Guys who, through choice or circumstance, had picked up the roles most everyone in the world assumed fell to the mother. One rarely heard sob stories about the plight of the single dad, but they were out there. Guys like him, and Mike, and James.
Moms got all the press. And the perks, in some ways. Because when a woman walks out and actually leaves her kids behind, they’re not as keen to work the shared custody schedule. At least, not in his experience. Nor were they big on making the child support payments ordered by the court. The press hardly ever railed on about deadbeat moms, but they existed. He knew for a fact James wasn’t getting a penny of the court-ordered support Megan was supposed to pay, but his friend didn’t bother fighting for his rights. The woman was the proverbial starving artist. Getting money for the twins’ most basic necessities would be like squeezing blood from a stone.
“Can I go play?”
Colm dragged his attention away from his fellow inmates and focused on Aiden’s hopeful face. Half his chicken nuggets were gone and all of his French fries. If Colm had been paying closer attention, the situation would have been reversed. But he didn’t have a single ounce of bad cop left in him. No, he’d expended all his anger and frustration long before the call from Jump Start came.
Looking his son square in the eye, he sighed. “You know the lady we went to see? Monica?” Aiden opened his mouth, but Colm forged ahead. “She isn’t Emma’s mommy, she’s her aunt. The day we met her in the park, she was just babysitting Emma for a little while.”
Aiden started up at him, his eyes wide, his expression nonplussed.
His kid’s lack of response sliced through another thread of his already barely-tethered self-control.
Curling his lip into a sneer, he stared straight into his boy’s eyes. “And I kissed her. A lot.”
Aiden’s nose wrinkled and his mouth puckered as if he’d sucked a raw lemon. “Ew, Dad.”
Colm raised his brows challengingly. “I’m not the one who got knocked off a slide when I tried.”
“But I was only gonna kiss her once,” Aiden reasoned. “You said you kissed her a lot.” He inched closer to the edge of the bench. “Can I go play now?”
Huffing, Colm made a flicking motion with his hand. “Go. And keep your lips to yourself.”
“Thirty minutes,” Aiden reminded him of their usual time limit as he shot out of the booth.
“Thirty minutes,” Colm confirmed, pulling his phone out and making a show of checking the time. “And don’t run.” The last time he turned him loose, Aiden had collided with a grandmother holding a tray filled with milkshakes. The result was not pretty. The boy waited by the edge of the table, his skinny body practically humming with repressed eagerness. Looking down at the phone, he pressed the icon to bring up the countdown timer. “Go!”
He smiled as he watched his son race-walk through the rows of tables. A blast of screams and laughter filled the restaurant as he opened the door to the play area. Like a herd of wildebeests scenting the air for danger, the dads looked up from their phones, tablets, or other methods of social blockading. The door closed, and Colm would swear the sigh he heard had nothing to do with the hydraulic hinge.
Smiling to himself, he returned to the home screen on his own electronic avoidance device and winced when he saw the number of notifications indicated. The first call he made was to Rosie. Thankfully, the call went to voicemail. He gave her a brief, detailed report of the accident, injury, and result, and concluded by asking her to pass the word to his partners along with a promise to check in with them later. Next, he called Jump Start. Half-expecting this call to go to a voicemail system as well, he jumped when a woman answered in a brisk tone.
As if she could see him, he sat up straighter and held the phone to his mouth. “Yes. Uh, yes, is Mrs. Bell in…please?”
“This is Mrs. Bell,” she replied crisply.
“Oh. Uh, this is Colm Cleary. Aiden’s dad.”
“Oh, yes. Mr. Cleary. How is Aiden?” she asked, her tone gentling a little.
“He’s fine, thank you. Bouncing back like a rubber ball.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he looked up and saw Aiden plunging headfirst into the ball pit. He cringed, not even wanting to imagine the antiseptic shower he’d have to give the boy when they got home. “Kids are crazy that way.”
“They are very resilient,” Mrs. Bell confirmed.
“I wanted to apologize for being so abrupt on the phone earlier. And to thank Ms. Seever for staying with Aiden. I know she’s one of his favorite teachers.”
“I understand, Mr. Cleary. You’d had a shock.” She covered the phone and spoke to someone else. When she returned, her tone was slightly harried. “Is there anything else you needed?”
“Uh, no. Thank you.” He grimaced when he realized he was calling during pick-up hours. They were probably eager to wrap up their day. “Thanks again.”
“We’ll see you and Aiden on Monday morning.” A statement, not a question.
“Monday morning,” he confirmed.
Those two bits of business completed, he glanced up to check on Aiden. He had climbed out of the ball pit of death and was scaling a rope ladder like the pirate the doctor accused him of being. Colm smiled. His kid apparently had at least one career path opening up to him already.
Sighing, he returned his attention to the phone. Opening his text folder, he scrolled to the ones received earliest in the day without letting himself peek at the latest. His jaw tightened as he read the first few from Monica. More lame explanations. A few excuses. One or two came across a little accusatory, even. Interspersed with these were Mike’s messa
ges. One warning him about the X-rated goodies he’d find at the Getta Piece, the next giving him the date and time of their next meeting with the bank about their line of credit, and the third simply asking where he was. James sent him a picture of Ron Burgundy. The caption said breaking a mirror is seven years of bad luck, but breaking a condom is eighteen.
Colm chuckled as he saved the meme. “True. So true.”
Those messages cleared, he had only Monica’s left. Unlike her earlier attempts, these were more subdued. Contrite. Apologetic. A shudder ran down his spine as he read the last one. The simple “please” she added to the demand he return her call came across as almost…needy. And he didn’t like Monica sounding needy one bit. The Monica he knew was balls-to-the-wall. She didn’t have a needy bone in her body. Greedy, yes, but never needy.
He scrolled down. The messages from Mike, James, and Rosie demanding updates on Aiden were much easier to deal with. They grounded him. Reminded him of exactly who and what he was. Their friend and partner. Aiden’s dad. The guy who got his teeth cleaned then went to bakeries specializing in buttercream boobs.
And Monica?
She was little more than a blip. Or she would be once a little time passed. The sting of betrayal would mellow and fade as it had with Carmen. He’d get reacquainted with his right hand. The most excitement he’d have to deal with would involve trips to Burger Boy and those heart-wrenching moments when Princess Clarissa went missing.
Colm sat up a little straighter, blinking rapidly as realization dawned. Aiden hadn’t had his doll with him at the hospital. They had his backpack in the car. Colm could only hope the doll was tucked inside as she was supposed to be during school hours. Otherwise, this could turn out to be a cluster-fuck of a weekend.
But Aiden had to have noticed he didn’t have his trusty sidekick. He wasn’t freaked out at the hospital, or when they were in the car. The doll had to be in his backpack; otherwise his son would have gone nuclear. For the life of him, Colm couldn’t remember the last time the kid went anywhere without her. Including the play area at Burger Boy.
