Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Okay, I have… snacks. Wipes. Insulin. Water bottles. Tissues.”
June ticked the items off her mental list as she rifled through her bag, confirming that she had everything she needed for an afternoon out with Benjamin.
Before she had become a mom, she’d thought the ‘hauling around a wagonful of kid junk’ years ended after they were out of diapers, but it turned out that this was extremely untrue.
Sure, some of the things that June now carried with her everywhere were particular to the needs of a kid with diabetes, but every parent knew the peril of needing a tissue for a snot-nosed kid, digging through a bag, and coming up empty.
June had touched some really gross stuff in the name of good parenting in her day.
Convinced that she had everything she could need, and equally certain that Benjamin would test the limits of her preparedness sooner or later, June turned to head for the door—and promptly knocked a stack of mail to the floor.
She crossed her eyes in an effort to keep from letting slip a choice word that she didn’t want her seven-year-old to hear, then bent to pick up the mail. She sorted as she went; most of this should have been thrown out before she’d even brought it inside.
Catalogue for a company where she’d bought one sweater about ten years ago? Trash. Offer for a credit card? Trash. Flyer for a big box store out of town? Trash. Another credit card offer? Trash, trash, trash!
June had half a tree’s worth of trash when her fingers paused on something that looked real. She opened the nondescript white envelope with her insurance company’s name in the corner. She dragged her finger through the seal, hoping to find good news about a reimbursement.
It was… not good news.
She’d asked her company to offer her a better deal on Benjamin’s insulin at the recommendation of their doctor, following the logic of some insurance-lingo mumbo jumbo that she hadn’t quite understood.
She’d taken diligent notes in the doctor’s office, and repeated everything precisely as she’d been told, and the insurance rep had been positive enough to give her hope.
But alas, no. She still had to pay the old rate for Benjamin’s insulin. And the old rate was… considerable.
For a moment, overwhelm threatened her. It was just all so much, and every time she felt as though she was finally, finally getting her feet beneath her, something new came dropping onto her plate.
How was a person supposed to function when there was always some new challenge lurking around the corner?
Before her panic could properly flare, however, a snatch of music floated through her mind.
It was one of the refrains that she and Levi had been working on for their song together.
It was just a small little trill of notes, one of many that they’d played with in their first recording draft, but it soothed her just to think of it.
She wasn’t alone. She’d never been alone, of course. She’d had her community at her back, and her friends had never let her feel that she couldn’t turn to them for help. But having Levi in her corner?
That made her feel even less alone. She hugged that feeling to her chest for a moment, then took a deep breath and put the bill aside.
It would wait, at least for now.
She hauled the bag on her shoulder, this time managing not to send her house into disarray with the action, and called up the stairs to her son.
“Benjamin! Are you coming?”
She heard the unmistakable clatter of toys that said that, even though Benjamin had gone up to put on shoes about twenty minutes before, he had absolutely gotten distracted. She gave it fifty-fifty that he would even have the shoes when he returned.
“Sorry, Mom!” he said as he came down the stairs, wearing one shoe and holding the other. Well, that was better than nothing.
“It’s fine, sweetheart,” she said, ruffling his hair. “Coat, though. And gloves. It’s warmer today, but it’s worth at least bringing them.”
“Gloves stink,” he grumbled, but he dutifully went to the front hall closet to dig through the bucket of winter gear while June hid a smile.
Benjamin might be a kid who was forced to deal with a lot of grown-up stuff lately, but he was also still young and carefree enough to act as though wearing gloves was a great injustice.
The two of them had finally gotten themselves all bundled when Levi knocked on the door, and June felt another frisson of nerves, but this one was a good kind, the excited kind, the ‘new crush’ kind.
Because today Benjamin was going to re-meet Levi, this time as someone that June was seeing.
She hadn’t quite used the word dating with her son, but she suspected that he suspected.
That was fine with her, as she wanted to ease him into the idea.
This was new terrain for all of them as a family, not just for her.
She wanted Benjamin to have as much space as he needed to adjust, ask questions, and talk openly about the idea of his mom having a new romantic partner.
So far, at least, Benjamin did not seem horrified by the idea. She knew they’d have many conversations in their future, but she felt optimistic.
“Hey, Levi!” Benjamin said as soon as June opened the door and before she could get a single word in edgewise.
“My mom said it’s okay if I call you Levi even though you’re a grown-up, since you’re her friend now.
I get to call some grown-ups by their names, like my friend Izzy’s mom, Cadence, but some we have to use our polite words, like Ms. Miriam, because she’s old, and old people get manners. ”
Levi looked delighted by this speech, which was good, because June wanted to shrink into the collar of her sweater like a turtle retreating into his shell.
“Everyone deserves good manners, actually, Benjamin Caldwell, and it’s not so polite to say ‘old people.’”
He looked up at her. “Why? Is it not true?”
Hoo boy.
“Sometimes we have to say true things in a slightly nicer way,” she said. “It’s called tact.” She could just see the questions developing behind Benjamin’s eyes, so she hastily added, “We’ll talk more about it later.”
Benjamin looked disappointed to have been thus outwitted, but he nodded without argument.
June finally turned to Levi with a smile.
“Hi,” she said. “You look nice.”
He looked down at himself on reflex, then gave her a rueful grin.
“I’m wearing the same coat you’ve seen me in every time,” he said regretfully.
“This cold weather stuff makes it real hard for me to bring my style A-game.” He paused.
“Then again, you also look really nice and I’ve seen that coat before too, so that’s me told. ”
She grinned at him, knowing her expression was a little dopey. He grinned back.
“I also look great,” Benjamin chimed in, breaking the spell. “But I would look way cooler without gloves.”
He said this slyly, less as a plea to get June to change her rule and more just to be a goofball, so she ruffled his hair affectionately and then gently used her grip on his head to direct him out the door.
“Get out of here, you punk,” she teased, and Benjamin laughed as he skipped down the front steps.
Levi gently extended a hand to June, subtly enough that she could decide not to hold his hand and it wouldn’t be obvious to Benjamin what had transpired.
But June didn’t feel any doubts. She reached out and laced her fingers with his, feeling a little like a heroine in one of those regency romance novels that Miriam was always reading, since she was extremely disappointed that there were gloves preventing them touching skin-to-skin.
“What do you think it feels like to have that much energy?” Levi asked as they watched Benjamin jump up on a stump, spin around, jump back down, and then do what June thought was supposed to be a flying kick, action hero-style.
She laughed. “Oh, you have no idea how often I think that,” she told him seriously. “I mean, I’m the one who has to try to meet that energy every day. And sometimes in the middle of the night… though fortunately we’re not in that stage so much anymore.”
When Levi didn’t respond immediately, June looked up at him and found him looking at her like she was the sun.
“What?” she asked, suddenly bashful.
“Nothing,” he said, then shook his head. “I just… you’re kind of amazing. Do you know that?”
“Stop,” she said, nudging her shoulder against his.
“Nah,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to do that. You’re way too cute when you blush for me to stop complimenting you.”
She could feel her cheeks growing even more red at this, but she didn’t feel like hiding.
They made it to the park with only three grumbles from Levi about the temperature, and only four pleas from Benjamin to ditch his gloves.
June finally relented when Benjamin needed his hands to climb all over the playground equipment, which he did with the fervor of a kid who had been kept inside by winter weather for way too long.
The ground was dry enough to lay out the picnic blanket that June had packed, and Levi pulled a cooler off his shoulder and began to unpack while Benjamin raced between the different climbers as though he simply could not decide which thing he needed to do first.
“Okay,” Levi said seriously. “I want you to know right now that you can never, ever tell my mama how much of this picnic I bought at the store, okay. She will disown me. I will never be able to return to the South, actually. My grandmama will haunt me—”
“I get it,” June said, unable to control her laughter any longer. “You’re a total disappointment to an entire culture, but we’ll muddle along anyway.”
He mimed being shot in the heart with an arrow, but he was laughing too.
“I’m just promising you that I do know how to cook,” he swore as he unpacked sandwiches and small containers from the deli section at Country Corner Market. “I just am maybe the tiniest bit out of practice, and then I got caught up in making banana pudding…”