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“Sometimes.” I go to stand. “He’s sweet though, he doesn’t always bark orders.”
I pause then, thinking this through. I can’t just bounce back into the room with Ethan and proceed with introductions. I’m scared. I need more time.
Simon seems to understand. Either that or he’s running scared too. Looking to the front door, he asks, “Do you want me to go?”
“I want you to stay.” The words are out before I can pull them back. “But I…I want to give Ethan a head’s up on all this. He’s precocious, catches on quick. Like, watch what words you use around him because he thinks he’s a grown man. I mean, he spends pretty much all his time with adults, so that’s how it goes and—”
“Take a breath, Charlotte. It’s all right.”
“I don’t want to introduce you to him as Simon, like you’re just some random person.”
Ethan calls out in a sing-song voice, “I wait-ting.”
I go on, clear-headed and steady this time. “And I think we need to talk about a few things first, don’t you?”
“Sure.” He looks upstairs with what looks like longing—or maybe that’s just what I’m hoping for. “I’ll get lost until his bedtime and then we can talk?”
Lawrence peeks his head into the living room. “You go up and check on him, Charlotte, and then I’ll take over. Take the man into town, get something to eat and you two hash it all out. I’m on duty.”
I check with Simon, who nods and gestures that he’ll be waiting outside. “Thanks, Lawrence, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Here I come,” I call out, taking the stairs two at a time.
My sweet boy greets me with a smile when I open the door.Everything is going to be all right. And I absolutely know this because I’m on solid ground now, I’m not the person I was a few years ago. I can do this, with or without anyone’s help. So no matter how it all goes down with Simon, I’m going to be all right and so is Ethan.
“Hey, my love, how was your nap?”
He stretches his little body out like a cat. “Where is Paw-paw?”
“Paw-paw is downstairs waiting for you, and he wants to know something.”
“What?”
“He wants to know if you’ll have a boys’ night with him…Help him with Moe, make sloppy Joe’s, watchLion King—”
“I say yes!”
“Ok, we’ll go downstairs and tell him. And while you have boys’ night, I’m going to go out and do some stuff.”
He rolls over and snuggles his body into mine. “You can come, Mommy.”
“You’d let me come to boys’ night?”
“Yes,” he says, and that simple word makes my heart ache with love for my son. I pray that Simon sees him the way I do. I pray that letting him into Ethan’s life is the right thing to do. I pray, like I do every day, that Ethan will stay healthy and that everything will turn out all right.
I must be squeezing Ethan a smidge too tight because he begins to squirm. “I love you, baby. I’ll be back in time for the second part of boys’ night. I’ve got something I need to do.”
Understatement of the year.
* * *
Simon
I want to bound up those stairs right alongside Charlotte. My need to get a look at Ethan with my own eyes is overwhelming, but I know she’s right, that a sudden, unplanned ambush isn’t the right way to do this. Waiting on her outside, I feel like I have to, I don’t know, drop down and bang out a hundred push-ups or something—anything to make use of the excess adrenaline pumping through my system.
It’s a full ten minutes before she comes out. I’m glad for the time now, feel more centered when she opens the door and looks to me. She’s every bit the girl I remember from that picture, but I can’t say she looks exactly the same. There’s something about her eyes that’s different, more knowing. She’s thinned out a bit, but it just makes the spots where she’s curvy more noticeable. I can see that she’s taken a minute to fix herself up. She’s changed clothes and put her hair up, but she still doesn’t fuss much over her appearance. Girls like her just don’t need to, and I’m thinking she’s finally come to realize that.
She stops halfway down the porch steps. “You still have the truck?”
