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“Finally.”
*
“Wait up, Bear.” I grabbed the boy before he could run out, and I made sure his sandals were strapped properly. “There you go.”
He was going through an…interesting phase. He hated wearing clothes. If he got his way, he’d run around naked all day. As it were, Nikki and I insisted on a diaper, sandals, and a T-shirt when he was outside.
We returned to the front yard, and I gave Grandma a glass of sweet tea.
“Thank you, dear. Could you please move the umbrella a smidgen for me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I glanced up at the sun, then repositioned the umbrella so Grandma was under the shade.
She much preferred the front yard to the back. Swimming pools had never been her thing, though she did meet up with her girlfriends every morning for water aerobics for seniors at her community back in Florida.
Colin darted over to his blanket, where he resumed playing with his toys, and I went back to pruning the rosebushes. I’d already done the lemon tree, the avocado tree, and the potted herbs. Nikki was coming over later, and she never declined fresh herbs from the garden. It wasn’t like Roe and I used them. I just liked to grow them.
“The figs are comin’ along wonderfully, Jake,” Grandma noted. “Have you harvested any?”
“Yeah, they’re really good. Breakfast around here beats any hotel buffet, lemme tell you.” I liked my yogurt in the morning, and in the summer, we had so much fresh fruit. I loved that.
Next year, I was hoping to add passionfruit and some more vegetables.
We ate a lot of produce, because it was easy. Anyone could chop vegetables for taco fixings or cut fruit for snacks. With both Roe and me somewhat challenged in the kitchen, more often than not, we threw something on the grill or ordered takeout. And when the overcooked pasta met its fate in the sink or the burned potatoes ended up in the compost, meat and vegetables were what remained.
Haley had given me a cookbook in sheer desperation. She couldn’t understand how one failed at making pasta.
So far, I’d used the book to kill a spider. I generally let them outside, but black widows had no place on our property. Plus, Roe was deathly afraid.
Glancing over at Grandma, I smiled a little when I noticed she was dozing off. It felt good to have her here. She’d injured herself last year, and knee surgery had put a stop to a couple visits. But now she’d recovered, and she was here for two weeks this time. Two weeks of July heat.
Two weeks of the calm before the storm. Filming was about to begin, and every company involved in Travel Back was in the final stages of preproduction. On July 17, we were off to Italy, then Slovenia and Poland. Mexico a few weeks later, and on it went.
Roe and I were ready for the madness. He would make a couple trips back home to take Sandra to the doctor’s—and to be present—and I was flying Haley and Colin out to see me once or twice too. But right now, the only thing we had on our plate was recording a bunch of podcasts so we didn’t lose our viewers and listeners.
“Dada, dis one?”
I looked over at Colin, finding him pointing at a weed in the flower bed next to the fig tree.
“Yeah, you can pull that one.” I nodded. “Good job, baby. That’s a weed. We don’t want those.”
He grinned widely and yanked it out.
Bringing him with me in the mornings when I picked a couple fruits and pruned mindlessly was leaving a mark. Colin knew that Daddy didn’t like the teeny tiny plants growing in the ground. Except for the time I’d planted a succulent garden along the back of the pool and he’d run over to me with a whole aloe plant and a proud smile. It’d been a learning experience for both of us—and a source of entertainment for Roe.
Speaking of the devil…
Roe was here. I caught a flash of blue on the other side of the hedge, rolling up on the driveway, letting me know that Roe was keeping his latest impulse buy. A bright-blue sports car that just wasn’t like my buddy.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was going through a crisis, but the recent events sure had resulted in a few uncharacteristic reactions. Mid-April, when he’d agreed to live part-time at Sandra’s place, he’d signed up for motorcycle lessons. I’d talked him out of it. A couple weeks ago, when Sandra came over for dinner and sported a diamond ring on her finger, Roe got a tattoo. Nothing Sandra-related, thank fuck. It was a dove descending from the sky, a tribute to his parents. And…just a couple days ago, after they’d set the wedding date, he’d come home with that dumb sports car.
