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Damn. In the past couple of days, I’d discovered that being a full-time uncle was tough. Joey was a good kid who didn’t ask for much, but I had to feed or entertain him every waking minute of the day. An intern from the front office had hung out with him at the arena while I was at practice, and Hadley had put herself in charge of scheduling his care when I was traveling. I was grateful for the help but still overwhelmed by my new responsibility.
“I know she misses you,” I said. “But what she’s doing is really important, so we have to support her.”
“What does that mean?”
His dark hair hung down to the tips of his long eyelashes, and I reminded myself again to take him to my barber for a haircut as soon as possible.
“It means you and me have to help each other out while she’s away. Like how you helped me with the dishes earlier.”
I figured the busier he was, the less he’d miss Emma, so I’d asked him to unload the dishwasher and fold towels earlier. The towels were already folded, but I unfolded every single one I could find in the linen closet and we’d refolded them together. He’d learned to fold towels and put away dishes; I’d learned that everything takes three times longer when you’re doing it with a kid’s help.
“I want some orange soda,” he said.
Upside. When he talked about missing Emma, he never lingered on it for long, which was good. Downside. I was pretty sure my sister never gave the kid anything but orange soda to drink, which we were going to have a talk about later.
“We don’t have soda here in St. Louis,” I said. “Just water and milk.”
“No soda?”
“Nope.”
He believed anything I told him, which made my life easier. I walked over to the fridge and got him a bottle of water, opening it and setting it in front of him.
“So how did you like hockey camp?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I fell down a lot.”
“Everyone falls at first. You just keep getting back up and you’ll get the hang of it.”
When I saw him in skates and hockey gear at camp last night, I’d felt a surge of pride. My nephew was going to be a hockey player. I had twelve weeks to make him fall in love with it.
“You’ll have kids to play with at Wes and Hadley’s,” I said. “And lots of toys.”
Joey’s face lit up with happiness. “What kind of toys?”
“All kinds. They have a whole room of toys. They even have a big treehouse thing in the basement you can climb on.”
“Do they have any robots?”
“I’m not sure, but I bet they do. You won’t get bored over there.”
He gave me a solemn look. “When are you coming back?”
Poor kid. His mom was the only caregiver he’d ever known. She’d left him, and though it was for a good reason, he was too young to understand it. Now I was leaving him when he’d only been with me for a couple of days. I had to, though. I couldn’t miss games unless I had a life-or-death emergency.
“I’m leaving in the morning and taking you over to Wes and Hadley’s house right before I go,” I said. “I’ll be gone for three nights. We can FaceTime while I’m gone.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll see. It’s pretty cool.”
He nodded and said, “Okay.”
“Do you have an iPad?” I asked him.
“No.”
He’d arrived with just a backpack filled with a few changes of clothes and his stuffed elephant. Emma said she’d been hanging on by a thread, their few possessions in the car she’d stored at my place. I knew I shouldn’t buy him all the things she wasn’t able to, but I wanted to spoil him just a little bit.
