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“I brought home subs less than two hours ago,” Aurelio said, shaking his head. “I feel like I owe my mother an apology. And about fifty grand.”
“Can you imagine how much of a nightmare it’s going to be in the summer?” I asked, grimacing.
“Is it too late to sign them up for summer camp?” Aurelio asked as there was a slamming noise in the garage before the door opened, and in came Judah, dragging two black bags in with him.
“You know we usually take trash out of the house,” Aurelio said, brow raised.
“It’s laundry,” Judah informed us.
It was almost startling how much more grown up he looked each time he came home. Or maybe that was just because of how much I missed him.
Because he’d stopped growing a few months before he finished high school, topping off at six-three. And he’d been into sports for years before that, making him wide and fit.
“I missed you,” I said, holding my arms open to him.
He looked bashful for a second, but made his way right toward me. “Miss you too, Ma,” he said, letting me squeeze the heck out of him.
“How’s school?”
“It’s good,” he said, releasing me to rummage through the bags for some snacks.
“And by ‘good’ do you mean you’re doing well with your classes, or you’ve hit up every party for the past few months?”
“A little bit of both,” he admitted.
He’d never been a kid to lie to us. When he’d gone to his first house party, he’d texted us at one in the morning to come pick him up because he was drunk.
When he’d skipped class to go to the beach with friends, he’d fessed up because the guilt had eaten at him. Even though he would have gotten away with it if he’d kept his mouth shut.
“So long as you’re being safe,” I said.
“Ugh, Mom,” he grumbled, face twisting up.
“Not what I meant,” I said, laughing at his discomfort. “But while we’re on the topic—“
“Oh, God…”
“Do we need to go over the safe sex talk again?” I asked, pressing my lips together to keep from smiling as Aurelio chuckled a few feet behind our oldest kid. “Next time I go to Costco, I can pick you up one of those jumbo variety packs of cond—“
“For the love of God, please don’t finish that sentence,” he cut me off, flushed.
“I’ll just get a subscription sent to your dorm,” I said, getting a pained grumble out of him as he dragged his bags out of the kitchen to get away from my teasing.
“He looks good,” Aurelio said, helping me put the groceries away.
He knew how much I’d been worrying since we’d left him in his dorm room and driven home without him.
College had been a demand Aurelio and I had made of him.
I knew that, given the choice, he would have gone straight from high school into the Family business. But we’d followed suit with the rest of the family members in insisting the kids get an education, go see the world, have some adventures, get some experiences that would allow for them to make decisions based on experience.
Did I believe that Judah was going to become an accountant? No. But I was happy to see him being a young adult for a while. Before he slapped on a suit, and followed in the footsteps of Aurelio.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Dad, can I take the car?” our daughter asked, coming into the kitchen wearing an outfit that was a little tight and just a tad shorter than I would have liked that I knew had to be making Aurelio wish he was the kind of dad who could do the whole ‘Not until you put some pants on’ speech.
It was hard for me to watch our boys grow up into little men. But it was harder for Aurelio to accept his little girls becoming women.
