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“You’ve been at your aunt’s house since then, and I’ve been at work. I’m still allowed to miss you,” I remind him as he grabs a banana from the basket on the counter between us and starts peeling it, while I lean over and swipe that piece of hair out of his eyes.
As a brand-new freshman in high school, sometimes he lets me, and sometimes he swats my hand away and rolls his eyes at me. Thankfully, tonight is a “letting me” night, and I try to let the soft, silky feel of his hair through my fingers as I get it out of the way of his eyes calm my nerves and get rid of the anxious butterflies in my stomach.
Seriously… why is he here on the island?
“Which is exactly why you need to measure me,” Owen says, pulling me back out of my wandering thoughts. He takes a big bite out of the banana, his next words muffled as he speaks while he chews, all the manners I taught him when he was a toddler instantly disappearing as soon as puberty hit. “You know every time I go to Aunt Birdie’s house, I come back taller. Measure me.”
He points the half-eaten banana at me like a gun, trying to give me a stern look, and I chuckle at him when the banana peel flops around his knuckles.
With my same heart-shaped face, same upturned button nose that looks a little pointy in profile, same dimple only in our right cheek, same eyes, same full lips with a deep cupid’s bow, thick, wavy hair, and small, short stature, I’m thankful every day that looking at my son is like looking in the mirror and I don’t have to stare at Kevin all day every day for the rest of my life. It’s bad enough I’ll have to deal with him, sporadic as it might be. The only part of his father Owen got was his brown hair, the same color as dark chocolate, which Owen keeps a little longer and shaggier, claiming it looks “cooler” that way when he wears his baseball cap and the ends curl up under the edge of it.
He’s my mini-me and my twin, even more so now that I’m no longer blonde. He’s the calm to my storm, and the reason I wake up every morning and bust my ass. Just one look at him makes me realize I’ve done at least one thing right in my life.
But sadly, Owen Alexander Oliver got my height. Or lack thereof. The poor boy has been waiting years to finally hit five feet, and now that he made it there a few months ago, I am constantly forced to check on the status of his growth. He’s had enough of the nickname “Smalls” on his baseball teams, but I’m afraid that one might be there to stay, since he’s had it so long, even if by some miracle he’s taller than anyone in the Bennett family. Five foot five is our absolute limit. We don’t grow them any taller than that.
“Come on, Mom, measure me. I got taller; I can feel it.”
“You did not grow since the last time I measured you. Which was three days ago. You were only at Aunt Birdie’s for a few hours,” I remind him as he tosses me his empty banana peel over the counter. I easily catch it and drop it into the trashcan shoved into the open nook under the breakfast counter right in front of where I’m standing.
“You know every time I go to Aunt Birdie’s I grow.”
Every. Damn. Time. It’s become a joke between all of us at this point.
Humoring him, since I know he won’t stop badgering me and go to bed when it’s ten thirty on a school night, I grab the measuring tape out of the drawer to my right, and we both walk over to the archway opening that leads from the kitchen into the living room. Toeing his tennis shoes off and kicking them out of the way, he backs up against the wall of the archway and stands tall, right next to almost fifteen years of dates, ages, and lines drawn on the white-painted wood in various colors and mediums, marking Owen’s height through the years.
Bending down to stick the metal lip of the measuring tape under the back of his heel, I quickly stand back up, sliding the tape measure open against the wall next to him as I go. Locking it in place and pressing the case against the wall, I lean to the side and grab one of Owen’s school folders from the small coffee nook counter next to the archway. Pressing the folder down on top of his head next to the tape measure, I use his “super scientific” method of making sure I get an accurate measurement, staring at the line markings on the tape. Blinking a few times and then staring again, I look at my most recent measurement of exactly five feet written with a purple pen the other day, on top of all the other five-foot measurements the last few months. Then I look a few lines up on the tape measure where the folder is currently resting on top of Owen’s head. With a few more blinks and a lean to the side so I can look down at my son’s feet and make sure he isn’t cheating by lifting up, I glance back at the folder I’m holding steady and shake my head.
