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I stand up. These two never let me rest for long.
Apollo seems on a mission, wherever he’s taking off to. Good Lord, and we’d all been so excited when they’d taken their first steps! Now I rue the day, because it means Mommy can never take her eyes off the ball or they’ll be halfway to Texas before I realize what happened.
“Apollo!” I call, but he has a magnificent habit of “not hearing” me when he doesn’t want to. And Diana just follows his lead like he’s her knight in shining armor. She never questions a thing he does. Thank God I have both their fathers to help watch over them because to call them a handful is an understatement, and they aren’t even three yet.
I jog to keep up with them, but at least I can see where they’re going. It’s a pretty open park. They’re aimed straight towards the clock tower, and I can understand why.
The four wide legs of the tower are thick and covered with brightly tiled mosaics. Some of the mosaic pieces are mirrors and sparkly bits that reflect the light of the late summer’s day. It’s a kid’s dream of an art installation piece.
“You see all the colors?” I ask, crouching down and about to explore all the different mosaic pieces with him when I notice that while Paul is indeed entranced by the wall, Diana is staring at something else. Something behind the wide column.
“Diana?” I ask, standing back up and walking around to see what she’s looking at.
And I jerk back immediately when I see that it’s a homeless man.
I grab my daughter’s shirt and yank her behind my legs instinctually.
The man at my feet, barely propped against the other side of the column that Paul is looking at, is filthy and emaciated. His short beard is gnarled with dirt and twigs, and his hair the same. I can barely make out his face except for the white orbs of his eyes when he blinks up at me.
“Mama?” Diana asks from behind me, and I’m about two seconds from picking her up in my arms, then collecting Paul and getting them both as far away from here as possible. This is supposed to be a family park, for God’s sake! And the police just left a man like this loitering where any child could—
“Hope?”
I freeze in my tracks, a chill curling up my spine as I turn around, still carefully sheltering both of the children behind my back.
“Hope, is that you?” The sickly homeless man tries to lift himself up on an elbow, and then he crashes back down to the concrete in exhaustion.
And my entire body begins to tremble.
“Milo?” I barely breathe it.
But he manages to lift his head just enough to nod at me.
And there, just there, beneath the sharp, jutting bones and mass of jungle-like hair, I can see the man that once was.
“I’ll call the police,” I say, pulling out my phone. “They’ll help us—”
“No police,” he says, with the most energy I’ve heard out of him yet. Then he collapses all the way to the ground.
I’m torn in half, wanting to run forward to him, but not able to leave my children in place.
In desperation, I call the only number I can think of. “Nia, girl, I hate to do this to you. I know we told you we wouldn’t need you till later. But is there any chance you could swing by Grant Hope Park and pick up the kids early?”
She says sure, she’s nearby even, doing an early coffee run.
I don’t let my eyes off of Milo—oh my God, Milo!!!—while I wait for Nia to come grab the kids from the toddler park.
In the meantime, I text Leander and Janus. But I don’t have time to look at the texts that start blowing up my phone in response. As soon as the kids are with Nia, I head back to the shady spot underneath the clock tower.
I half expect him to be gone.
A mirage I’d summoned simply because I’d been thinking about him so much lately.
But no, never in my dreams or nightmares had he looked this bad. He’s exactly where I left him. Maybe no longer able to move.
I crouch down right beside him and take his hand. He grasps mine back tightly for a moment before his grip slackens.
“Milo, honey,” I ask, pushing some of his matted hair back from his forehead. The curls are so snarled in knots, I think we might need to cut most of it off and start fresh. “When was the last time you ate anything?”
His eyes open and wander to me. “Are you an angel? I came here to die.”
I clench his hand tighter. “No, you will not. You will not die. Or starve. Hope is here now.”
