Chapter Ten Picnic
Zack puts stamps on envelopes as I find the dreaded lace-up sandals—and toss them into the trash.
I hated them. The plastic-y laces cut into my legs and made a blister on the top of my foot.
I choose white canvas shoes instead, even though they don’t do anything to make me look statuesque or even elongate my chubby, semi-toned calves.
“You and Mercer are going swimming? Without me?” Zack looks miffed, and then he looks back at the small stack of birthday invitations and smiles.
Even though we’ve already verbally invited everyone in the small group we’re having over, Zack insisted on sending out the invites that we found at the grocery store.
They had diggers on them, and thus, the argument was lost before it was begun. “You can give him his invitshun.”
“Invitation.”
“Invitishun.”
“Invitation.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Okay, baby.” I brush my hair for a third time. It’s humid today, so my cute curls are turning into un-cute frizz.
“Will he come?”
“Yes. I know he will.” I don’t have any doubt that Mercer will be at Zack’s birthday party next Sunday. The only thing that would stop him would be a natural disaster in Harmony Glen, and at that point, the party would be canceled anyway.
“But not Daddy?”
“No. Not Daddy,” I say, brush dropping back to the top of the dresser in my room.
Zack takes the stack of cards from where he was stamping them while sitting on my bed in a nest of pillows, and hurries to the living room. “Is Mercer coming on Friday?”
“You mean next Friday, your birthday? Yes.” I love answering my son with such firm conviction, and yet my palms are suddenly sweating.
What if I ruin this? Tonight is our first real date.
What if I blow it so badly that Mercer and I can’t stand to be in the same room with each other, like Eli and I?
Yeah, but Mercer isn’t an immature jerk. He’d be gracious and chivalrous, and so would you, because Zack matters more than egos and misunderstandings.
“Will he get me a present?”
“I bet he will.”
“I like him.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“Can he be my dad instead?”
I stop in mid-step. “Well, he can be like a dad. A good, kind, wonderful person in your life.”
“That’s a friend.” Zack starts packing his little bookbag to go spend time at Allison and Petey’s house—with their parents, too, of course. He’s putting in a ton of dinos and dump trucks, and only the size limitations of his bag prevent him from taking his entire toy bins.
“Well, what’s the difference?”
“Dads kiss you goodnight every night, and they see you every day. Mercer does that.”
“I...” I have to stop there and think. Yes. In three weeks, Mercer has seen Zack every single day, even if it’s only for a small amount of time. “Well, good friends could do that, too. Neighbors. We’re sort of neighbors. We live just a few blocks from the lake where Mercer lives.”
“A dad lives with you.”
“Not all dads.”
“Dads who love the mommies live with the mommies and the kids. Like Allison and Petey’s dad.”
I literally need to clutch the wall for support.
The simple truth in his words reminds me of how innocent and young my son is, and yet how smart he already is.
I can’t even lie to him and tell him that it takes a long time for someone to be a dad.
Some guys go from one-night-stand to eighteen-years-of-child-support in under three minutes.
“Could I ask Mercer? He’d say yes. He loves us.”
I sit on the couch and watch Zack work the zipper shut over the awkward bulge of a T-Rex and a dump truck.
“Well, honey, I know he loves you very much, but we’ve just met Mercer, and—”
“But you only have to have something once to know you love it. Like chocolate. Or The Land Before Time.”
Yep. Zack’s first bite of chocolate cemented it as a favorite food, and one watch of the dinosaur movie that makes me bawl like an infant turned it into his beloved “comfort movie.”
“That’s true,” I say uneasily. “But just because you love Mercer, doesn’t mean that he and I—”
Zack gasps and freezes me with a look that I can’t explain. Shock. Disappointment.
If you’ve ever been caught taking your kid’s Halloween candy without their permission, and they’ve given you that look of horrified betrayal, then you know this look.
I shrivel inside. “What?”
“Mr. Mercer loves you so much, Mommy! He’s always helping you. He’s always trying to take care of us. Make us happy.” Zack’s brows draw together. “You don’t love him?”
“I love him like a friend,” I explain, and realize that’s true.
“Then why can’t he be a dad?”
“Because it’s not time. It’s not time yet,” I add, mostly to get myself out of this uncomfortable conversation.
Zack’s lip starts to wobble. “But I don’t want him to leave. I want him to stay and come to all my parties, forever.”
Oh, holy shit, why? Why tonight, why now? I hurry to scoop him up. “I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have let you spend so much time with Mr. Mercer if you’re so worried about him not being here.”
“He will too be here! He’s a good dad.” Zack’s vehemence surprises me—and yet it doesn’t. Mercer has shown that he is always there, from lifesaving rescues to Saturday night bedtimes.
I’m silent, the comparison obvious. Everything in my brain is guilt-tripping me for letting a man get close, while my heart is saying that I should give in already and admit that there’s something special between Mercer and me, something that I want to move slowly, but that travels like a tsunami wave instead.
With timing that is par for the course of my life, Mercer knocks on the door, and Zack springs out of my arms to open it.
“Zack, wait!” I run after him, but he’s too quick today.
Mercer’s cheery greeting cuts off with a surprised yelp as Zack climbs him like he’s a big teal jungle gym and embeds himself in his neck and arms. “Oh! Oh, my baby kraken, what is it?” Mercer demands, tentacles and arms going protectively around Zack, his eyes meeting mine.
“We’re having some big feelings and big confusion right now.”
“Oh, my goodness. What’s wrong? Do you not want us to go out?
We can stay here,” Mercer says swiftly, and I have to admit that it earns brownie points.
Some men (cough—Eli—cough) would pitch a fit if they thought a kid was going to get in the way of their romantic date—especially since Mercer and I have been slowly turning up the heat on our goodnight kisses until just the sight of him makes my insides dangerously close to combusting.
“I want you to be the dad. Mom says no.”
Mercer looks at me, first in shock, and then with that “You stole the Halloween candy” look of betrayal. “What?”
“I said not yet. I said you’re a wonderful friend, and I know you’re always going to be here for Zack. And for me,” I add softly.
“That’s right, Zack. I’ll always be here.”
“But a friend is different from a dad. You can have lots of friends, but just one dad. I want one who is here every day, like you.” Zack hugs Mercer one more time and then races to get his envelope from the pile.
Even though he can’t read, Zack knows some letters.
He decorated Mercer’s invitation with a huge blue M and a picture of the lake. “You’ll come, right?”
“To everything, from your third birthday to your high school graduation.”
That’s the second time Mercer has made that remark, and my eyes narrow. “That’s a specific day.”
“And an important one,” Mercer agrees, hand resting on Zack’s head. “But your mom is right, Zack. Not yet. See, to be your dad, first I have to be a husband to your mom.”
I choke on words that don’t actually come out in any kind of intelligible language. Just a splat of noise.
Husband. The dude said husband.
“It might take me a very long time to prove that I am worthy to be someone that important in her life. But I will never give up, and you will never lose me out of your life, not as long as your mother and you say I can stay in it.”
Zack sniffs in and nods. “And you’ll come on Friday? Because it could be a best day. Mom says we can go get ice cream and have waffles for breakfast. And bacon. And I get one present that day. The rest at my party.”
“Ah, then you’ll get two presents that day, because I also have one for your actual birthday and one for the party,” Mercer boops his nose and picks him back up.
“You want to give Allison and Petey their invitations, too, don’t you?
Shall we go over so you can play with them for a few hours, and you can tell them all about the party?
I hear there will be dino and digger tattoos in the goody bags. ”
“And dino straws.”
“Is the cake going to be chocolate or vanilla?”
“Yellow.”
“Ah. That’s a color, not a flavor, isn’t it?”
And just like that, Mercer is grabbing up Zack’s bag in one tentacle, the invites in the other, and asking Zack if the cake is every yellow thing he can think of, getting sillier by the second, until Zack starts to giggle.
“Is it lemon? Banana? Summer squash? What about sunflower-flavored? Ooh, what about sun-flavored? No? Oh! Oh, I know! It’s construction equipment-flavored. Yum yum, with diesel icing. No?”
They’re out the door, giggling into the dusk while I watch and wonder what the heck more I could want out of a man.
Madelyn drops Zack off with a dozen kisses on his curly head, reminders that she can be reached on her cell phone, and a printed-out stack of emergency info handed off to the parents. Zack hands out the invites, and squealing commences again.
We leave a happy boy behind, but Madelyn looks grave and quiet.
I try to fix things, offering my hand as we walk towards the beach. “I’m sorry he asked you that. It must have put you in an awkward position. I know I could never bear to say no to Zack—unless it was harmful.”
“That’s just it. Saying yes wouldn’t be harmful. You’d be a great dad, I’m sure. You’d be an amazing husband. It’s me. There’s a lot about me and the past that’s stirred up and unsettled right now. Besides, we’ve only known each other for a few weeks.”