“Invitishun.”
“Invitation.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Okay, baby.” I brush my hair for a third time. It’s humid today, so my cute curls are turning into un-cute frizz.
“Will he come?”
“Yes. I know he will.” I don’t have any doubt that Mercer will be at Zack’s birthday party next Sunday. The only thing that would stop him would be a natural disaster in Harmony Glen, and at that point, the party would be canceled anyway.
“But not Daddy?”
“No. Not Daddy,” I say, brush dropping back to the top of the dresser in my room.
Zack takes the stack of cards from where he was stamping them while sitting on my bed in a nest of pillows, and hurries to the living room. “Is Mercer coming on Friday?”
“You mean next Friday, your birthday? Yes.” I love answering my son with such firm conviction, and yet my palms are suddenly sweating. What if I ruin this? Tonight is our first real date. What if I blow it so badly that Mercer and I can’t stand to be in the same room with each other, like Eli and I?
Yeah, but Mercer isn’t an immature jerk. He’d be gracious and chivalrous, and so would you, because Zack matters more than egos and misunderstandings.
“Will he get me a present?”
“I bet he will.”
“I like him.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“Can he be my dad instead?”
I stop in mid-step. “Well, he can be like a dad. A good, kind, wonderful person in your life.”
“That’s a friend.” Zack starts packing his little bookbag to go spend time at Allison and Petey’s house—with their parents, too, of course. He’s putting in a ton of dinos and dump trucks, and only the size limitations of his bag prevent him from taking his entire toy bins.
“Well, what’s the difference?”
“Dads kiss you goodnight every night, and they see you every day. Mercer does that.”
“I...” I have to stop there and think. Yes. In three weeks, Mercer has seen Zack every single day, even if it’s only for a small amount of time. “Well, good friends could do that, too. Neighbors. We’re sort of neighbors. We live just a few blocks from the lake where Mercer lives.”
“A dad lives with you.”
“Not all dads.”
“Dads who love the mommies live with the mommies and the kids. Like Allison and Petey’s dad.”
I literally need to clutch the wall for support. The simple truth in his words reminds me of how innocent and young my son is, and yet how smart he already is. I can’t even lie to him and tell him that it takes a long time for someone to be a dad. Some guys go from one-night-stand to eighteen-years-of-child-support in under three minutes.
“Could I ask Mercer? He’d say yes. He loves us.”
I sit on the couch and watch Zack work the zipper shut over the awkward bulge of a T-Rex and a dump truck.
“Well, honey, I know he loves you very much, but we’ve just met Mercer, and—”
“But you only have to have something once to know you love it. Like chocolate. OrThe Land Before Time.”
Yep. Zack’s first bite of chocolate cemented it as a favorite food, and one watch of the dinosaur movie that makes me bawl like an infant turned it into his beloved “comfort movie.”
