“You gonna stay here with my dad?” Ben asks me. He’s got peanut butter on his face. How he managed to get it on his forehead, I’ll never know.
“I have my own house,” I say. I get up and wet a paper towel in the sink.
“With Bear?”
“With Bear.”
“And Anna? I know Anna.”
“You do, huh?”
“She picks me up from school sometimes.” He watches every step I take toward him.
“You’re wearing your food,” I tell him.
He cocks his head at me.
“Peanut butter,” I say. “On your face.”
He doesn’t say anything. Children are so weird.
“I’m going to clean you, okay?”
He doesn’t react as I gently grip his chin and dab the peanut butter away. His gaze never leaves me, and his eyes are blue, the same shade as his father’s. In fact, this close, there would be no mistaking who he belonged to. I wonder briefly if he’ll be just as big. I don’t know much about autism, but it’s not a death sentence. He might grow out of a lot of it. And even if he doesn’t, from what I’ve seen, he’s remarkable. Kids like him usually are, deserving far more credit then they’re given. He’ll probably prove himself to be more resilient than I ever was.
I half expect him to pull away while I clean his face. “Ursidae and Mustelidae,” he says to me.
“You sure know a lot about animals,” I tell him.
“I like them.”
“Me too.”
“There’s bugs,” he says. “Outside.”
“That’s how I met your daddy. Because of bugs.”
He nods as if that makes perfect sense.
His face is clean and I let him go. “All finished.”
“Told you,” I hear from the entrance to the kitchen. I jump, feeling guilty, but over what, I don’t know. I turn and Dominic is there, leaning against the doorway, arms across his chest. Standing next to him is Ben’s mother.
Stacey.
She looks at me with something akin to awe. I look at her as one would look at another if unsure they’re friend or foe. She was always so nice. So upbeat. So friendly.
And for the longest time, I would not have been sad had she been eaten by a walrus. Awful, that. Of course, had she defended herself and killed said walrus, I would have probably labeled her an animal-killer and would have expressed my moral outrage by bashing her character on the PETA message boards.
Wow. Apparently, she brings up very conflicting feelings for me. She’s nice, but she’s also the definition of pure evil. Sort of.
“Hi, Mom,” Ben says. He scoots himself down from his chair and walks around the table. He stops in front of her and she leans down, smacking a wet kiss on his lips. He smiles up at her as he presses his shoulder into her leg. She looks as beautiful as always, and standing together, they seem to make the perfect family. I wonder just how far off base we were, if they’re still married. I’ve probably somehow found myself on Dominic’s only day off in a month and they’re all planning on doing something as a family, and here I bust right in, talking about shotgun weddings and playing Bitchy Cop.
My life is a travesty of epic proportions. This is probably going to get very awkward very quickly.
“It’s amazing,” Stacey says. Her voice sounds a little thick, as if she’s getting ready to cry. “You were right, big guy. That’s something else.”
Oh boy. Here it goes. The secret language of married couples who are madly in love and talk right in front of me about things I don’t understand. Lovely. I’m so glad I came here and got to have this rubbed in my face. Knowing my luck, she’s probably pregnant again. If I squint hard enough, it looks like she’s gaining weight in her face, so she sort of has jowls (okay, not really, but it’s making me feel better, at least a little bit). Where the hell is a walrus when you need one? Come to think of it, can a person even buy a walrus? I don’t know if I could do that. PETA would probably end up banning me for life, and even though the organization is pretty much off its meds now, I still want to be in good standing with it so that when I take control of it one day, there won’t be too much of a fight.