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He walks in and squeals, “I get a bunk bed!”
He’s up the ladder and flopped on the top bunk before I can even walk through the door. “You think this place will do?” I ask him. I hold my breath while I wait for him to reply.
“I love it,” he says firmly. I added a bookcase earlier today, and the toys I’ve been bringing over slowly from my mother’s house line the shelves. I open the closet so he can see his shoes lined up on the floor and his clothes hanging on the rack. The room is small, but it’s more than big enough for him and his things. “Dad, can I sleep on the top?”
“Do you think you can keep from rolling off?”
He nods his head in quick jerks.
“Then you can sleep on the top.” I added a rail just this afternoon, and I painted it so it would look like the rest of the bed, but I don’t tell him about that.
He rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. I added stars to the ceiling, too, but he won’t really be able to see them until after dark. I guess that’ll be a surprise.
“Where will Wilbur sleep?” he asks.
I pinch my lips together. “Wilbur will be sleeping with his new friends,” I say. Last night I went back to the tent, but Wilbur wasn’t there. I pull out my phone and show Mitchell. “But we can see where he is. I put a tracker on him so we can see where he’s going and where he has been.”
“Cool,” he says, as he climbs down to come study the app. It’s really an informative little tool, kind of like the ones that pigeon keepers use to track where their birds travel. When I put the little band on Wilbur, he didn’t even notice. “So if he flies south, we’ll be able to see where he lands?”
“I suppose we will.” I already miss Wilbur, but keeping him with me would be wrong when he could have a perfectly good life as a normal duck.
Mitchell walks into the living room and drags his fingers down a row of books. I filled the lower two shelves with kid books, a few comic books, and I figured we could buy some books together after I find out what he likes to read.
He looks at me and grins. “I like this place.”
I swallow hard. “I like it too.”
I hear the crunch of tires on gravel and
look out to see a car pull into Abigail’s drive. Two women get out, and there’s a lot of squealing.
“Girls are weird,” Mitchell says as we watch through the screen door.
I say nothing, but I kind of agree with him.
“So is Abigail going to be my new mom?” he suddenly asks.
I freeze. “What?” I try to buy myself some time. “What do you mean?”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re in love with her.” He sings out the words “in love.” He clasps his hands together and bats his eyelashes at me.
I try to bite back my grin, but it’s impossible. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“I know, but when you get married, will she be my mom?” He watches the four ladies like he’s suddenly very interested in knowing what’s going on over there.
“Well,” I say, “she wouldn’t be your mom. But if I asked her to marry me and she said yes, then she would be your stepmom.”
He stares up at me. “That’s kind of the same thing, right?”
I rock my head from side to side and try to come up with the right answer. “Sort of,” I hedge.
“I think it might be nice to have a stepmom,” he says quietly. “Especially if she’s nice like Abigail.” He looks at me. “One of the kids at school has a stepmom and she makes him take baths and stuff.” He looks warily out the door. “Is Abigail going to be that kind of stepmom?”
I honestly have no idea if Abigail even wants to be a mom. We’ve never talked about it. “I don’t know,” I reply.
He suddenly opens the screen door and runs out, his little tennis shoes flying across the front yard. He stops in front of Abigail, and all four women are startled by his sudden appearance. I follow him slowly, wondering what he’s about to do, terrified he’s going to say something he shouldn’t.
But he just sticks his hand in Abigail’s and looks up at her. “Hi there,” she says, looking to me for guidance. I shrug, and she looks back down at Mitchell. The other three women all wear similar expressions of curiosity as they wait. “Did you need something, Mitchell?” she finally asks.
