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Aaron points to the snack bar, where Mr. Jacobson is waiting to hand out goodies. He gripes as someone comes up to change a dollar. The kid blanches, takes the quarters, and runs away as fast as his feet will carry him. “Mr. Jacobson used to scare the hell out of me too,” he admits.
“He still scares the hell out of me,” Eli tosses in.
Aaron laughs and points at the snack bar again, apparently remembering what he originally wanted to say. He lays his hand on top of Sam’s head. “The first time I ever saw your mother,” he says to her, “she was standing right there buying some fruity-smelling gum.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dollar. “Go see if Mr. Jacobson has any.”
She runs along and he stands staring at the snack bar like he’s looking at the past rather than the present. “She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he says to Kerry-Anne. He laughs. “I was smitten immediately.”
“You acted like you had forgotten how to talk when you walked up to her,” Eli reminds him.
“What did you say to her?” Sam asks as she comes back and hands him the pack of gum.
“I don’t remember exactly, but it was probably incoherent. She took my breath away.”
“What’s in-cow-hear-ant?” Kerry-Anne asks.
Aaron grins at her. “It means…well, let me think…it means twitterpated.”
“Ohh,” she says as understanding dawns.
Aaron opens the pack of gum, takes a piece, then passes it around. There’s one piece left when it gets to me. The fruity flavor bursts in my mouth and I have to chew the hunk of strawberry-flavored goo enough to get it soft before I can blow a bubble. I blow and the bubble grows and grows, and my eyes get wide, but Eli suddenly leans forward and bites the edge of my bubble, making it burst in my face. I laugh as I pick the sticky gum from my cheeks and hair.
“You missed some,” Eli says and points under my eye. I scrape it off and flick it in his direction.
Eli chuckles loudly. “Some things will never change.”
Aaron says softly, “And some changes can’t be helped.”
“Dad, let’s play ping pong.” Sam pulls him by the hand toward the table, and they find some others to play too so they can play doubles.
I lift my camera to my eye and take a picture of him as he spends these last precious moments with his girls. When he can’t beat Sam, he picks her up and spins her around. Her face reflects her joy not just at victory but also her love for her father. I hope I have captured some of that joy.
I walk over to the skee ball machine and cringe when I see the leader board with Eli’s score still lit up. “No way you’re still in the lead after all these years. You cheated, didn’t you?” I ask him. “You can admit it now. It’s been so long ago that I won’t even get mad.”
He glares at me. “I told you then and I’m telling you now. I did not cheat.”
“Liar,” I tease.
“Bess,” he warns. “You need to learn to be a gracious loser.”
“Never!” I cry. And I put my quarter into the machine. The balls drop into the shoot with a clatter. He stands back, crosses his arms, and watches me with a smile on his face. I take a shot, and it’s terrible. “That doesn’t count. I’m out of practice,” I explain.
“No, you just suck,” he says, laughing at me.
I roll through my eight balls, a little dejected because I perform so poorly.
“My turn,” he says. He holds out his hand for a quarter, so I slap his palm instead of giving him one. He glares at me.
“What? I’m going to let you beat me and pay for it? No way.”
He goes and gets a few dollars’ worth of change from Mr. Jacobson and comes back, but I’ve already started on round two. “Hey,” he protests.
“You snooze, you lose,” I taunt as I roll my ball. It jumps into the highest point slot. “Yes!”
“All right. Let’s see what you got,” he says as he leans against the machine next to us.
“I got moves you’ve never seen.” I wink at him and I roll another ball. It too falls into the highest point slot.
“You’ve got a lot of stuff I’m starting to feel like I’ve never seen,” he murmurs so that only I can hear him. His left eyebrow shoots up as he grins at me.
