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“It’s just not appropriate.”
“Okay,” he whines, then suddenly cheers up.“I’m going to find sticks for the arms!”He darts away.
Silence falls between Harris and me, and I can’t help looking out to the Severn River and noting the spectacular sunset.It makes me wish this guy was more than just my neighbor right now.How I miss enjoying a sunset with a man.
When Bryant and I bought a small waterfront house in this community, I imagined watching many sunsets right here, holding hands as the day’s light melted into the picturesque skyline on the other side of the river.That, it turned out, wasn’t meant to be.
“Your kid’s great,” Harris comments, his voice pulling me back to the present.
“Thanks.I think so, too.”I press my lips together thoughtfully, watching Nicholas picking up a few dead branches that fell to the ground last time it snowed.“I have to thank you.I haven’t seen him take an interest in things like building snowmen since his dad left.”
His head cocks to the side.“Divorce?”
“Yeah.It’s amicable.His dad’s in Philadelphia and gets him on the holidays.”
“Just on the holidays?That’s got to be rough.”
“It is.Nicholas wishes he could see him more.”
“Well, yeah.But I actually meant that’s got to be rough onyou.Doing the single mom thing most of the time,” he points out.
“It was harder in the beginning.But Nicholas and I—we’ve settled into a routine now and—” I cut myself off when Nicholas comes running over to us, two long sticks in hand.“Looks like you got some good ones there, honey.”
“How about I get that cover for our snowman?”Harris asks.
“Cover?”My son’s face screws up.
“It’s the hat that goes with our uniform.”
“Oh, a cover.”He smiles as he says it, as though knowing Navy terminology will make him that much cooler to his friends at school.“Yeah, sure.I’ll put the nose in,” my son volunteers.
Harris takes some long strides toward his apartment and disappears down the steps as I follow my son out to the snowman.
“Hey, Mom,” he begins, impaling the snowman with a nose.“Can he come for dinner?”
I look at the snowman, confused.“Who?”
Nicholas gives me one of those eye rolls that I’ll bet he’ll master when he’s a teen.“Harris.”
“Honey, we don’t even know him,” I remind him.
“Sure we do.He’s even friends with Mason.Come on, Mom.Maybe he’ll tell us spy stories.”
“Any spy stories he’s got are classified, I’m sure.”I see Harris emerge from his apartment.“And besides, I’m sure he’s busy,” I add in a whisper to my son because a guy who looks likethatdefinitely can’t be lacking company at nighttime.
“But maybe he’s not,” my son says loudly enough to be heard, and then directs to Harris, “Want to come over for dinner tonight?Mom’s making chicken and dumplings.It’s good except for the vegetables part of it.”
Ugh.If I wasn’t so mortified by the idea that my son sounds like he’s trying to get me a date, my heart would break in two at the idea of Nicholas being this desperate for male role models in his life.
“Honey, I’m sure he has plans,” I tell my son, even though it would be more truthful if I’d just fess up that I wouldn’t even know what to wear if I had plans with a man who looks like a Navy recruiting poster.
“I actually don’t,” Harris shocks me by replying.“And I’d love to.I mean, if you really are up for company.”
“I—I—” I fumble my words.
Up for company?Like the male kind?I’m trying to remember the last time I made dinner for a man outside of the casseroles I’ve made that have fed plenty of men at our neighborhood block parties.
And all ofthosemen were married.
