Whit
“Jonas,” I hiss. “Knock it off.”
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
“That’s a bad word,” the kid on the swing practically shouts. Now I’m a little tempted to throw rocks at him, too. “My mom says you get soap in your mouth for saying that.”
Funny considering how many gentle parenting articles his mom shares on social media.
“Sorry,” I say over my shoulder. Bridge of my nose pinched tight between my fingers, I walk away while keeping Jonas firmly planted in my periphery, along with the gossiping moms on the opposite side of the schoolyard.
It was a stupid idea to bring all the students and their parents here to celebrate the last day of school.
In a small town where everyone knows everyone, this sort of forced mingling becomes a cesspool of rumors and stink eyes.
No amount of fruit punch and barbecued hot dogs can mend relationships that have been fractured since we were all little kids on this very playground.
“Boys will be boys,” one of the gossiping moms, Megan, says through a hearty fake laugh on my approach. “I’m so glad I had girls.”
Smoothing down the front of my buttoned blouse, I step over the railway tie dividing the children’s area from the adults’. The dark wood creates a harsh line between dusty gray pea gravel and green grass. The difference between retaliating against your enemies with handfuls of rocks or catty words.
“Yeah. Kids can be quite a handful.” I tamp down what I want to say, plastering on a fake smile to match hers. My go-to pacifying Stepford Wife appearance. I wear it so often and so well, there’s an argument to be had about whether this is my real smile now.
“Must be nice having the energy to chase him around…. Guess that’s a perk of getting your parenting years started early.
” Megan makes the same comment I’ve heard approximately a million times from the moms around here.
They love nothing more than making digs about the fact that I had a kid straight out of high school, as if that’s a crime.
She tilts her head to watch Jonas and his friend play-fighting. Lord, I hope it’s play-fighting. “Jonas is so much like Alex was.”
“Well, I don’t think I’d say that.”
Alex was a fucking terror. And while I loved how much my parents hated him back when I was a teen, I don’t want Jonas to be anything like Alex was. Is.
“Mmm,” she hums through pursed lips. “How many times was Jonas suspended this year?”
Megan’s friends—minions, rather—avert their eyes and quickly bring cups of punch to their lips.
“Boys will be boys, right? Jonas is…well, he’s not Alex.” I tuck a lock of pin-straight hair behind my ear, conscious of my quickening pulse. “Anyway, I need to get home for a work meeting. You ladies have a great summer.”
Not waiting for their reply, I step back into kid world and consider picking up a handful of rocks—or maybe grabbing the spitball contraption it appears Jonas is holding—and aiming right for Megan’s face.
The problem with trying to raise a child who isn’t like Alex is knowing I need to set a good example for him.
Even—or maybe especially—when it’s hard.
The noise of parents slowly fades into shrieking children, the incessant squeak of a seesaw in need of oil, and sneakers running through dense gravel.
Kids mill about everywhere, already in cliques that mirror the adults, and Jonas slips the dismantled ballpoint pen into the back pocket of his jeans when he sees me looming.
“Hey, buddy.” I sidle up next to him, reaching down and discreetly yanking the spitball weapon away. He turns to glare at me, and I slip my free hand around the back of his neck, pulling him in for a hug. I plant a loud, smacking kiss on the top of his messy blond hair, much to his disgust.
Teach him to give me nasty looks on the playground.
“I’ve gotta go. We have dinner at your grandparents’ tonight. Come straight home after school, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs off my embrace.
“Straight. Home.”
“Yes, Mom. You can leave now.”
“Weird of you to call me mom like it’s an insult.” I tousle his hair for good measure, doing double duty by humbling him in front of his friends and making us look like a loving mother-son duo to any gossips on the sidelines. “See you at home. Love you.”
· · ·
Shortly after six p.m., Jonas and I stand on my parents’ front stoop with the sun at our backs and a wisp of a breeze fluttering the tips of my hair. My hand hesitates on the door handle, and I give him a look. “Best behavior.”
“Don’t make that face. You look like Roz from Monsters, Inc.” He mock frowns, launching into a rough impression of Roz’s throaty voice. “Jonas Hart, you better behave at Grandma’s house.”
“I’m serious, Jonas. You’re lucky to be seeing the light of day right now.” I give him an earnest look. “Grandma’s been having a rough time lately, and you make her happy. Only reason you’re out of jail a night early.”
Jonas’s lips roll together for a moment, and he murmurs, “Best behavior. Promise.”
Late last year, Mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and while having the actual diagnosis was difficult to stomach, it also came as no surprise to me.
Because I work from home and live around the corner from my parents, I’ve been the first point of contact for every missing set of keys, forgotten item, and general brain fog moment.
Rather, I was that go-to person until my sister moved back home a few months ago to take care of Mom.
“Hey,” I call out from the entryway, kicking off my sneakers next to Jonas. He gets a running start and slides into the living room in socked feet, earning a laugh from my mom. Whether she’s lucid or not, he seems to know exactly how to brighten her day.
Nothing in my parents’ house has changed in decades.
The forest-green couch I had my first kiss on, the white-and-baby-blue geese decor in the kitchen, and my sister’s various achievements lining the mantel.
The entire place has a golden hue, our family photos look happy, and a warm cinnamon aroma lingers in the air.
It feels homey, but it doesn’t feel like my home. Never really has.
I’m the puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit, and I spent years whittling down my edges in an attempt to be part of this family in any meaningful way—inadvertently becoming jagged and even less likely to connect.
I love my parents, and I know they love me, but our relationship is surface level at best. And since the diagnosis, I’ve come to terms with the fact that we’ll never have an opportunity to change it.
Without fail, Jonas heads straight for the fridge to grab a can of root beer, then settles into the corner of the couch. Sticking to a promise for once, he entertains conversation with my mom about his last day of school.
“Where’s Dad?” I plunk onto a counter stool next to my sister.
Blair stretches her lean torso across the counter, and brown hair curtains either side of her face as she reaches for a wineglass balanced on the dish drying rack. “Outside cooking burgers.”
I should’ve known. It’s the one thing our dad can cook well.
“Is that all you guys eat around here?” I raise an eyebrow, watching my older sister give me a heavy pour of red wine.
“On the nights he cooks? Yes.”
The first sip slithers down my throat, instantly warming my stomach, and I cradle the glass in two hands like it’s a warm mug of cocoa on a wintry night. The heat continues through my bloodstream, pumping hard in my chest, when I overhear Jonas agree to do a puzzle with Mom.
“How was the school party today?” Blair stares over the rim of her glass.
I snort. “Splendid.”
“That bad, huh?”
“No shortage of nasty looks from the mom squad.”
Blair tilts her head at me with a questioning expression.
I stop to look over at my son, lowering my voice so Blair’s forced to lean in to hear. “He drew a penis on his English test a couple weeks ago. No doubt all the parents heard about it.”
My sister seals her mouth with a flattened palm, muffling a small bout of laughter.
“I practically had to beg the principal not to expel him, Blair. What the hell am I supposed to do if they don’t let him go back next year or something?”
“They can’t do that, can they? There’s no other schools in the area.”
“I think they can do whatever they want.” The pads of my fingertips tap my tear ducts in a silent reminder not to cry.
If I cry, my parents will want to know what’s wrong.
And if I tell them about Jonas’s incident, I’ll be a failure in their eyes once again.
Mom’s lucid enough she’ll give me a speech about parenting, and how she handled situations like this one when Blair and I were younger, as if she were winning mothering awards.
Dad will shake his head with stern disappointment, then promptly change the subject.
“At least it’s summer break now. Maybe he’ll be in a better place—a little more mature—when he goes back in the fall?”
“Yeah…” A shaky breath sends shivers down my spine. “I don’t know what to do with him this summer, though. If he stays home, I know he’s going to do nothing but play video games and argue with me.”
“Do they still have summer camps at the agriculture hall?”
Swallowing a mouthful of wine, I nod. “Not enough interest to run it all summer. But he’s there next week. Alex paid for it.”
“The least he could do.”
The very least.
“I’ll help as much as I can. You know I will,” Blair says. The mouth of the bottle clinks against the rim of her glass. “I’ll just…um, move some things. Maybe bring him to the clinic with me again? Or I’ll tell Cassidy I can’t babysit for a little while.”
“Blair, you don’t have—”
“It’s fine. I have no problem helping.”
“I asked Alex to spend time with Jonas this summer but apparently work is really demanding. I think he paid for camp to get me off his back.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek, gnawing away the emotion clawing at the backs of my eyes and top of my throat.
“I wish he’d quit being such a fucking sleaze.”
“You’re telling me.” With a sigh, I look around at the kitchen of my childhood, vividly remembering the countless arguments my parents and I had about Alex.
When it comes to him, sleaze is one of the kinder insults to be hurled within these walls.
“But also, he has a point. He’s a roofer—summer is their busiest season. ”
“Bullshit. You gotta stop letting him walk into your life whenever he wants.”
“I know. I know…. But he’s the father of my only child. At one point, I loved him. It’s not that simple.”
Blair’s wistful gaze meets mine; our small frowns mirror each other. “Trust me, I know how you feel. But holding on to the past isn’t healthy, especially when he’s not on the same page.”
I down the rest of the wine and eagerly reach for the bottle. When Blair moved home to take care of Mom a few months back, she reconnected with her high school boyfriend, and now she’s apparently an expert on relationships.
“Easy for you to say when the love of your life magically turned everything around to win you back. You’re all glowy and shit now.”
“After more than a decade apart,” she says. “Give Alex an opportunity to miss you.”
With a swallow, I shrug. Wine goes down real easy when I’m talking about my ex. “But that also means keeping him from Jonas.”
“Is he seeing him now?”
“Well, no, but—”
The sliding glass door cuts my sentence short, and Dad appears with a proud gleam in his eye and a plate heaped with steaming burgers.
“Great,” Blair mutters into her glass. “Looks like we’re getting leftover burgers for the next three days.”
After topping up my glass—thank God I live within walking distance of my parents’ house—I follow the rest of my family to sit around the table.
Slipping into an empty chair, I watch Jonas squirt ketchup over his cheeseburger with a concerning amount of tension and angst carved into his expression.
He looks more like a hardened fifty-year-old going through a nasty divorce than a ten-year-old starting summer break.
I remember the softness of his smile and the way he’d stare up at me as a toddler, arms outstretched as he waited to be picked up.
It was easier then; he ate up every lie about where his dad was and didn’t question my decisions.
He didn’t deserve those lies, but he also doesn’t deserve the truth.
No kid should have to face the reality that their dad doesn’t want them.