Payton’s energy was contagious, and the only hiccup was when a woman and her large dog appeared from around a bend and Payton got momentarily scared. She apologized, and the dog was friendly and on a leash, so there wasn’t really anything anyone could’ve done to prevent the upset. Once she was gone, Crew cupped Payton’s cheek and looked at him seriously where he was hanging onto my leg.
“Do you think they have sprinkles at the cow restaurant? For your ice cream?” he asked.
Almost immediately, Payton forgot about being scared and off we went again. The two of them talked about ice cream, and I watched them, feeling like this might be it, like maybe,just maybe, this was my family now.
That feeling just intensified when we sat in the sunlight outside the “cow restaurant,” with our treats.
Out of the blue, while meticulously eating his ice cream, Payton stated, “Okay, I think we’re good.”
I handed him a napkin. “What do you mean, buddy?”
“I think we should be a family. Crew should be my other dad.”
I looked over Payton’s head at Crew who was sitting on his other side. He looked a bit stunned, but there was also a small smile forming as he processed.
“Yeah?” he asked, his eyes going from me to Payton, who was still people watching and not really paying attention to the big emotions the adults on either side of him were having.
“Yeah. This was a family date to see if we were good as a family, right? Well, we are. So we should be.”
Crew chuckled, and I could see he was tearing up a little.
“I’m sure we’ll get there,” I said firmly.
“Yeah,” Crew agreed, and reached to put his hand on my back. “Yeah.”
On Thursday, a couple of days later, I went to get Payton from daycare. I’d promised to take him to the library to return the books he’d read and to get more for the weekend. They’d last longer, but for some reason he was obsessed about the “for the weekend” idea, and I happened to be a parent who would forever indulge my kid when it came to reading and books.
“Did you get everything?” he asked me as soon as I had him in his car seat.
“Yeah, everything from your pile. It’s all in the tote,” I promised.
He’d gone through our cabin and found all the books he needed to return.
We drove to the library and he chatted about his day all the way, only stopping when we walked inside the building.
“You can go find new books; I’ll return these,” I said, because I could see the way his attention was stolen by the bright colors and books of the children’s section in the front corner of the space.
It wasn’t a very big library—there was a bigger one in the nearby town—but it was enough for us.
As I walked to the front desk to return about ten children’s books and one thriller that I’d managed to get through, I realized that the annoying librarian, Kathy, was sitting behind it.
There was another woman who looked to be in her early thirties sorting some books behind her by another desk.
“Good afternoon, Malachi,” Kathy said as if we were great friends.
“Afternoon, Ma’am.” There, boundaries.
“I enjoy seeing little ones who love books this much.” She began to handle Payton’s returns.
“I better go grab myself something and then go wrangle him before he tries to fill the whole tote to drag home,” I joked, and for a moment, I thought I’d gotten away from her.
“You know,” she said, her tone changing into something I couldn’t read and getting louder for the other librarian’s benefit. “If I’d known that all you needed to do to bag a Harrington was to go work on the ranch, I would’ve gone there myself decades ago!”
The other woman giggled but stayed concentrated on her task.
The rage and shame that bubbled up inside me were so potent that for a moment, my vision went blurry. Instead of heading left to the adults’ section, I went right to try and get Payton his booksas quickly as possible. With the tote bag under my arm, I stuck my hands into my pockets to hide how much they were shaking.
The women laughed behind me, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It was a blessing and a curse, and I felt the agitation roll over me in waves.
