Once I sit, Leo stands and goes to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of ketchup. “Huh… What are you doing?”
Leo shakes her head. “First thing you need to know for Daddy Training 101: Rune needs ketchup on about 90% of what he eats.”
“Oh, don’t you dare!” I reach for the ketchup bottle, but the red monstrous condiment touches my perfectly seasoned chicken parm and my heart breaks.
“Whose spawn are you? Ketchup demon.” I look at Rune with disgust, and he just laughs.
“Ketchup issooogood!” He uses his monster voice, and I roll my eyes.
“I’m disappointed in you, Leo. How could you even bring ketchup into this house?”
She sets the bottle on the table and goes back to sit in her own chair, “Blame Auntie Cole. She took him to lunch one day and came back with a grocery bag full of ketchup.”
“Well, Auntie Cole just made it onto my shit list.”
“What's a shit list?”
Leo looks horrified, and I just laugh. Oops.
“Rune, we don’t say that word. It’s not nice.” Her stern, scolding voice makes me want to act out.
“A shit list is when someone does something that makes you mad.”
Rune shrugs and digs into his dinner. The kid inhales his food. And when we are all done, I look at him and give him some fake hand signals and his face goes serious, ready to start his mission.
He goes over to my wallet resting on the entryway table and starts digging.
Leo and I head to the kitchen to put our plates up, and Rune walks up to us. His body language is slow, sad. He’s holding…
Fuck.
“Mommy, why does Dr. Giraffe have a picture of you guys in his wallet?”
She turns, and he holds up the photo booth reel we took years ago. I completely forgot it was in my wallet. I used to look at it every day, but I haven’t in a while. It was too hard to see her face, despite feeling like I couldn’t live without seeing it.
Leo takes it but doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me, fear evident in her eyes. I nod, understanding that she needs me to do this. She wants to run, but from this, she can’t.
I kneel down so I am eye level with Rune.
“Hey bud, your mom and I took that photo eight years ago. We…” I look up to her, and she nods. “We were in love, and from that love, we created you.”
Rune’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and he shakes his head. “You… You’re my dad?”
“Yeah, buddy. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you at first. We thought…”
The tears streaming from Rune’s eyes halt my words, my thoughts, my world.
“Stop! You—I—I hate you! Both of you! You’re both on my shit list!” Rune runs to his room, leaving me staring at the ground and Leo sniffling behind me.
When I stand, I wrap her in my arms, and she begins to sob. “This is my fault. I should have told him.”
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll talk to him.”
“No, I should. This was my fault. You wanted to tell him, I… I made a mistake.”
“Leo, let me do this. You have raised Rune for seven years, and you have done so beautifully, but you don’t have to do it alone anymore. Plus, I think Rune needs guy talk.”
I can see the hesitation painted on her face, but then she nods. “Okay.”
