15. Blake
CHAPTER 15
BLAKE
I found myself living from playdate to playdate, hanging on for the moment I could see Oli again. I’d say goodbye and two minutes later, I’d come up with a dozen new questions to ask him, all the details I should know as his dad. Did he like to eat cereal, or did he like hot breakfasts? Did he know how to swim yet? Did he want to learn? What did he want to be when he grew up? Maybe a dentist. He’d asked about that. But then he’d asked Claire if boys could be nurses. And he’d said something about flying a plane.
I’d hung up his drawing on my rental fridge, and it made my chest hurt whenever I saw it, not in a bad way, but in a full way. I was full of so much — hope, fear, and delight. A constant low hum of anticipation. The worry I wasn’t or wouldn’t be enough.
I was in front of my fridge when Claire’s call came in, admiring Oli’s artwork as I thought about lunch. We weren’t due for a playdate for another two days, and my heart plunged at the thought she might cancel.
“Hey, Claire.”
“Hi, Blake. Just a minute. Oli, please put that down and go get your shoes.”
Oli giggled in the background. Claire let out a sigh.
“Sorry,” she said. “Are you busy right now?”
“No, not at all. What do you need?”
Claire was pacing around. I could hear her shoes on the tile. I could hear Oli too, playing with Buster.
“I hate to do this,” Claire said. “Actually, you know what? I shouldn’t have called.”
Something crashed in the background. Claire hissed through her teeth.
“Buster, no, down . Oli, your shoes!”
I leaned on the counter. “You guys need some help?”
“No, I don’t— Buster! Sorry, could you hold on?”
She set the phone down with an audible thump, then I heard Buster’s claws skitter by. Oli giggled and shrieked. Claire yelled his name. I heard a door slam, then muffled laughter, then Claire’s shoes again.
“Blake? You still there?”
“Sure am. What’s up?”
“Look, I shouldn’t do this.” Claire’s tone was tense. “My parents went antiquing, and they got rear-ended. They’re stuck out in Red Banks, at the garage. I’m late for work, and?—”
“You need me to watch Oli?”
Claire was quiet a moment. I could feel her wheels spinning. I guessed I was her last choice of babysitter.
“Could you? I wouldn’t ask, but everyone’s busy.”
“I’d love to,” I said. “I childproofed my place.”
Claire made a strangled sound. “Childproofed it how?”
“I got some of those plug things that go in your sockets, so kids can’t stick stuff in there and get a shock. And those corners for tables, so they’re less sharp. You know, those rubber things?”
“Yeah, I know those.” Claire exhaled hard. “Look, you’d have to feed him dinner. He’s had his lunch, but he gets a snack after nap time, and I might not get off work until late. If I’m not there by seven, he needs to go down. It’s really important he sticks to his schedule. Do you think you can do all that?”
I grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Because he’s a haggler when it comes to bedtime. He’ll beg for five minutes, then five minutes more, and then he’ll mess around brushing his teeth. You have to stay on him, or he’ll stretch it for hours.”
“I’ll make a game of it,” I said, confident. “Last one to bed is a rotten egg.”
“Don’t think he’s not wise to that.” Claire clucked her tongue. “Okay, we’ll be there in half an hour. You’re sure you can handle this?”
“I promise I’ve got it.” How hard could it be? I had done my childproofing in case Oli came by, not just the socket guards, but a whole danger sweep. I’d moved all the cleaning stuff to a high shelf and fixed up a loose board I’d found in the hall. The back door was glass, so I’d smudged it up some, so Oli wouldn’t hurt himself trying to run through it. I cast about for any hazards I might’ve missed, and pushed my toaster back from the edge of the counter.
Claire made it over in twenty-five minutes flat, Oli dawdling behind her to check out my yard. She handed over a diaper bag and a folded paper.
“That’s his schedule right there, and you need to stick to it, especially when it comes to his meals and his nap. Oh, and his bedtime, but we went over that. She patted the diaper bag. “His snack’s in the side pouch. Give him that , and not sugar. Especially if— what are you doing for dessert?”
I made an umm sound. I hadn’t thought about that.
“Nothing too sugary. It’ll mess with his bedtime. He’ll either go nuts and crash out by six, or it’ll be nine and he’ll be glued to your ceiling. I should be back by then, but my shifts can run long.”
“No sugar,” I said. “So, fruit’s okay?”
“Fruit, but no apple juice. It makes him pee. I packed extra training pants in case?—”
“ Mom! ” I’d never heard a kid sound so outraged. Claire smiled down at Oli.
“Go in, okay? I need to talk to your dad.”
Oli shot Claire an affronted look, but he headed inside. Claire watched till he’d jumped on my overstuffed couch.
“There’s nothing in there he can get into?”
“Just my laptop, but there’s nothing weird there.”
“I meant more like aspirin, or, y’know, gelcaps. Anything a kid could mistake for candy.”
It was my turn to be offended. “I locked all that up.”
“Okay… okay. What else? Oh, right. Training pants, change of pants, extra shirt, too. He’s toilet trained, but he has accidents. You have to remind him every two hours.”
I made a mental note of that. “When’d he last go?”
“On our way out the door, so you’re good for a while. Now, he has some mild allergies, and this place looks dusty. His itch cream's in there, in the first aid kit, and you need to stay on that. If you see him scratching, put it on right away. If you don’t, he’ll keep scratching, and that just makes it worse. His llama’s in there, and he needs that for nap time, and his yellow blanket, and a couple of books.”
My head spun — itch cream? And what was his llama? I’d never seen any llama, or any yellow blanket.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Claire glanced at her phone. “Crap, I’m so late.”
“Go, go. We’re good.”
“Just stick to the schedule, and bedtime’s at seven!” She patted the diaper bag, and then she was off. Oli came up behind me.
“I don’t pee my pants.”
I laughed. “I know, bud. But I wouldn’t tell if you did.”
“I only peed one time, ’cause Adam was tickling. He wouldn’t stop tickling, even when I said.”
“Well, then, I’d say he deserved to get peed on.”
Oli giggled at that. “Can we go to Playland?”
“Maybe on Saturday, when your mom can come too.”
Oli’s face scrunched. “Can’t we go both days?”
“I don’t think your mom would be too keen on that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because we need to be home if she calls. She’d be worried about you, if she called and we weren’t.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” said Oli. “My other babysitter takes me out all the time. She takes me to Playland and out to get pizza, and one time, we went to see a magician.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was Oli trying to pull a fast one?
“I was born at night,” I said. “I wasn’t born last night.”
Oli frowned up at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means no Playland today. But I’ll take you soon, promise. Now, how about, uh…” It occurred to me then, I hadn’t bought any kid stuff. I had no ball to toss with him, no games to play. I didn’t even have crayons or cable TV. “How about you, uh, read to me from one of your books?”
Oli pulled a face at that. “I was reading all morning.”
“We could… bake a cake?”
“Uh-uh. That’s boring.”
“Well, uh…” Was this all part of some Playland long con? Call everything boring till I caved and took him? No way could a three-year-old be that sneaky.
“I’m bored,” Oli said, drawing out the O sound.
He was right. It was boring here. I’d been bored too, sitting around building fantasies of my life with Oli. But it hadn’t occurred to me to make any real plans. I tried to think what I’d done with my parents, but I couldn’t remember much, except little flashes — me and Mom at the mall. Dad cooking dinner. One of my foster moms teaching us yoga. Maybe that could be fun for us, a quick downward dog?
“What do you and your mom do, when it’s just you two?”
“We play with Buster,” said Oli. “Or we go to the park. Or one time, we were going to blow bubbles. But Buster drank the bubble mix, so we had to go to the vet.”
I jumped on that. “Bubbles! We could do that.”
Oli lit up. “Really? You have bubble mix?”
“No, but we can make some. You know how it’s made?”
Oli shook his head, but I could see he was hooked.
“Okay, first thing, we need a big pan. The biggest one we can find, with a flat bottom.” I led the way to the kitchen, Oli in tow. He watched, round-eyed, as I dug through the cupboards, and I pulled out a casserole dish. Oli gave it a doubtful look.
“Our bubble mix just came in a tube. With a little stick thing for blowing the bubbles.”
I winked. “Well, that’s fine for regular bubbles. But we’re blowing huge bubbles.”
“Really? How huge?”
“Huge enough you could fit in one. Buster could, even.”
Oli laughed. “You can’t blow bubbles that big.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Gramps says it’s bad to bet. Gambling’s illegal.”
I chuckled at that. “Okay, we won’t bet. But I’m telling you, bud, these bubbles’ll be epic. Could you grab me the cornstarch out of the pantry?”
Oli went to the pantry and combed through the shelves. I filled up the casserole dish partway with water.
“Is this it?” said Oli.
“No, that’s corn syrup. The starch is the yellow box right by your head.”
Oli passed me the cornstarch and I measured half a cup. I dumped it in the water and passed Oli a spoon.
“Now, you have to stir it. Stir it real good.”
“Real- ly good,” said Oli.
“That’s right, really good. Stir it till all those grains disappear.”
Oli got stirring, and I built us a bubble cage, a big loop of string with two straws for handles.
“What’s that for?”
“You’ll see. How’s that stirring coming?”
Oli stepped back, and I could see he’d done good, most of the cornstarch dissolved in the water. I dumped in detergent, baking powder, and glycerine — or, a glycerine-based bath oil I’d found in the shower. I figured it’d work, or at least, I hoped.
“Smells minty,” said Oli.
I chuckled. “Yeah, it does. But that shouldn’t hurt any. Let’s head outside.”
Oli carried the bubble cage and I took the mixture, and I set it down on the low picnic bench. “Okay, now here’s what I want you to do. Hold onto those straws and stretch the bubble cage wide — yeah, that’s right. Make a big loop. Dip it into the mixture, and then you walk backward.”
Oli cocked his head. “Walk backward?”
“That’s right.”
He dunked the cage in the mixture and pulled it out dripping, a rainbow film of bubble mix stretched end to end. When he took a step back, the film bulged and wobbled.
“That’s it, bud! Walk a little bit faster.”
Oli took a bigger step, and then another. The film ballooned and he shrieked with delight.
“Dad! Dad, it’s blowing! It’s blowing a bubble!”
“That’s right, keep going. See how big you can get it.”
Oli staggered in circles, clumsy in reverse. The bubble wibbled and wobbled and stretched out long, until it broke free and floated down to the grass. It hung a moment, then popped, and Oli giggled.
“Dad! It was so big, I heard it go pop.”
“Think you can blow a bigger one?”
Oli ran back for more bubble mix. I watched, and my chest felt all full up again, so full of emotions I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t even put a name on all I was feeling — happiness, yeah, and pride I’d made Oli happy. I wanted to protect him and protect this moment, and fill his whole lifetime with moments like these. Not just his life, but Claire’s as well. I felt the loss of the childhood I might’ve had, and I ached to give all I’d missed out on to Oli. He needed to have all the things I had dreamed of, family and love. Safety. His parents. He needed to look back when he was my age, when he had his own kid and his life starting out, and he had to remember good times with his dad. Good things he could pass on to his own kids.
“Look, Dad! It’s huge! It’s bigger than Buster!”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, bud. It is.”
“You have to take pictures so Mom can see!”
I snapped a couple of shots, then a couple more, and then so many I couldn’t count. I knew I’d want to look back on this, every smile, every second. Oli’s surprised face when he fell on his butt.
I’d missed too many moments to let this one escape.