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“Yeah,” Jorge agreed, “Mom makes the best sweet potato fries.” He put his hands together dreamily.
It was overkill. Her son liked her fries, but he wasn’t dreamy about them. He obviously wanted Noah to stay and play.
“We can’t just invite ourselves,” Gideon said to his nephew.
“Of course you’re invited.” She’d bought enough for all of them, hoping that they’d go from the museum to dinner.
“Plus, you have to show us how to play that game, Gid.” Jorge added inducement.
“What game?” Rosie asked.
“Hopscotch.” He glanced at her. “You draw a grid on the sidewalk with chalk.”
“We used to play that.” She thought of all the games she used to play as a kid. Freeze tag and kick the can and hopscotch. Things that didn’t cost money. You didn’t need a video game console, you didn’t need a TV. All you needed to keep yourself entertained was a little ingenuity. “I can get dinner ready while you show them,” she offered. “There’s room for hopscotch out on the patio.” Though tiny, it could still handle a hopscotch grid.
“We have chalk,” Jorge said. “So can you show us, Gid?”
* * *
How was he supposed to say no?
He’d promised Ari he’d take care of Noah. And take care of him Gideon would, by making sure he had the most fun possible for the next two weeks.
“Sure,” he said, forcing his lips into a smile. “Bring out the chalk, Jorge, and we’ll lay some down.”
He hadn’t forgotten his horrifying painting. Nor had he forgotten that Rosie had seen his raw and bleeding insides splatted all over the paper—or that she’d had to take the painting away from him before he could destroy it. But with two little boys to play with, there wasn’t room to ruminate. Not much room, anyway.
On the back patio, he showed them how to draw the hopscotch grid, how to toss the rocks and make the jumps. They teetered and sometimes fell over and always laughed, whether they were standing upright or not. And eventually, Gideon was able to laugh with them.
A while later, they ate grilled hot dogs and sweet potato fries—and yeah, they really were the best—then they hopped the scotch again. Kids were tireless.
Rosie watched them through the kitchen window as she cleaned up and did the dishes. Gideon had offered to help, but she’d told him to play with the boys.
Gideon had worried that after his post-painting outburst, she might think he was too much of a nut job to be around her kid. But she wouldn’t have invited him to dinner if that was the case. Right?
“This is super fun, Gid,” Noah said. “Were you as old as us when you learned?”
“I was. And then I taught your mom how to play when she was six. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we needed games that didn’t cost anything.”
“Not even Legos?”
“We had those, but they weren’t like the Legos you have now. They were just simple blocks in a few colors, and since we got them from the thrift store, lots of pieces were missing. But we had fun with them anyway.”
He’d always taken care of Ari because their mom wasn’t capable. After his dad died when Ari was just a baby, their mother had lost all sense of herself. She’d turned to drugs to manage her grief. Only ten years older than Ari, he’d had no choice but to take care of her since their mom couldn’t. And yet, for as much as he’d been a lifeline for Ari, she’d done the same for him, a shining light with her big smile and quick mind. He’d loved spending time with her. It never felt like babysitting.
“My mom buys stuff at thrift stores too,” Jorge told him. “We like looking through everything for the best deals.”
“Can I come with you sometime?” Noah asked, clearly not realizing his father was so wealthy that he could have bought an entire chain of secondhand stores.
“Sure,” Jorge said, then called out to Rosie. “Are you gonna come play with us, Mom? Otherwise, Gid is probably gonna be too tired to keep playing for much longer.”
She laughed, that sweet musical laugh that reached right up under his ribs. “Perfect timing. I’m all done in here,” she said, then came out to join them.
He should have taken Noah home already. But there was something so comforting, so easy and normal, about playing hopscotch with Rosie and Jorge and Noah until the sun went down and they had to turn on the porch light so they could make out the chalk lines.
Even in the aftermath of what had gone down at the museum this afternoon, Rosie’s easygoing demeanor allowed him to move through the rest of the afternoon and evening without making a big deal of anything, without beating himself up ad nauseum, the way he normally would. And now, his jaw actually ached from so much smiling. Probably because his face wasn’t used to it.
“Okay, you guys,” Rosie finally said, looking pointedly at her watch, “it’s past Jorge’s bedtime.”
