We spent the week eating corn fritters in the morning and ice cream in the evening, walking on the beach and building sand castles.
As the sun sets on the gulf, tiny mollusks no bigger than a fingernail line the shore. They rise from the sand with each passing wave, popping to the surface in large groups to feed. They pebble the beach, turning the shoreline into a shifting cobbled path.
Just as quickly they bury themselves, hiding from sandpipers and the pounding of waterlogged feet. They shimmy and slip beneath the sand like dolphin fins beneath the waves. I don’t know how they do it, but I explained to Ian that they probably vibrate too quickly to see, shifting the grains of sand around them like a blanket.
Ian would constantly fall behind. He looked for shells and fish, watched sand fleas dart between his toes and scatter from his footprints. He squatted with his hands on his knees and kept his face inches from the water, which told us just how far he’d come in his battle with the ocean.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw him kneeling, his fingers digging in the sand. He ran toward us, heralded by the patter of his feet on the wet sand and holding something between his thumb and forefinger. He waved his hand in the air.
‘Daddy, I think this one’s dead,’ and showed me the small, closed shell he’d found. ‘It doesn’t…it won’t…,’ and he squatted and wiggled his bottom, an impromptu Chicken Dance in the waves of Madeira Beach, ‘…do that! Like that!’
He tossed the shell into the sea and ran back to his interrupted search, bookmarked by eroding footprints.
Ian has this…laugh. It’s forced and painful, like a diversionary chuckle following an awkward pause after an off-color joke. It’s a role he assumes when he thinks someone should be laughing.
The cats are chasing each other or he’s misplaced a book or I’ve dropped something. Those silly cats, my silly self, that silly Daddy. He gives his head a slight shake and lifts his hands. It’s a laugh that says, ‘Whaddaya gonna do?’
Ian turned five years old on Friday.
Yesterday, at the park, I asked him if he wanted to play at the playground or explore more of the park. ‘We can do whatever you want, Daddy.’
At breakfast, Kelly sighed and shook her head over too many pancakes. ‘Whew. I’m slowing down.’ Ian paused with his fork and replied, ‘Not I.’
He rubs my back when I have a headache and scratches it while we’re watching TV. He takes deep breaths and levels his voice when he’s angry, and tells me that I’m his favorite Daddy. ‘But, kiddo, I’m you’re only Daddy.’ But, he tells me, I’m not the only Daddy he knows, that Sam and Olivia and his other friends have Daddies.
Doors in our home have been mysteriously closing. Bathroom doors. Which isn’t all that strange, I suppose: if you’d want any doors to be closed in your home, I imagine bathroom doors would follow a close second to the front.
Except that no one’s using these bathrooms while the doors are closed.
I knock and the doors swing inward. The lights are off. I don’t think our home’s old or its history sordid enough to have a poltergeist: no ancient burial grounds, no pet cemeteries. Still, it’s spooky.
I’ve spent the past few days at home, trapped in pajamas and surrounded by wadded tissues, strewn blankets, and mugs of tea. I made a brave attempt at work yesterday but came home a few hours later, after my computer monitors started to melt and I could no longer understand English.
Ian was home, so I changed into jammies and we played The Spiderwick Chronicles together. After a few minutes of battling goblins, he stood and went to use the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush, the faucet run, and then saw Ian slowly, carefully close the door behind him.
‘Ian, have you been shutting the bathroom doors?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘In case it floods.’
‘What? The bathroom? You think the bathroom’s going to flood?’
‘Yeah!’
Several weeks ago the downstairs toilet backed up; unfortunately, it happened on Ian’s watch. I’d forgotten about it.
‘Ian, toilets don’t usually flood. It only happened once, and we fixed it. But even if it does happen, the bathroom won’t fill with water.’ I didn’t mention that closing the door wouldn’t help. ‘Okay, kiddo?’
Her name was Julie. Slightly shorter but slightly older, hair in a pig-tail and a missing front-tooth. She didn’t need water wings. Ian was enthralled.
Ian wouldn’t play with me when Julie was in the pool. It was half-hearted and he was distracted, looking over my shoulder to follow Julie’s trail of splashes to the deep end. Eventually he told me he didn’t want to play, apologetically, as if it were out of his hands, because it was.
We stayed later that night, because of Julie. Long past his bedtime. She swam, he followed, both of them teetering between the kiddie pool and the big pool, which seemed appropriate.
He was reluctant to come when I called, and took heavy steps toward the towel. He paused, dripping, and I reminded him to say goodbye. He knelt by the pool and I didn’t worry about falling; in some way, he already had. He crossed his arms over his knees and I saw his head bob, the way it does when Ian explains. She replied and he stood, smiling but frowning—smlowning— footslogging his way back.
I dried and he talked. Will we see her tomorrow? Maybe. I had fun. I saw that. Maybe she could meet us here? She probably has her own plans. Will we see her tomorrow? Maybe. He pulled away.
‘I’ll be right back. I want to tell her something.’
‘What?’ Even though I knew and hated to ask, because this was his.
He looked down and grew quiet and shy. ‘It’s a surprise.’
Only to him. ‘Okay, kiddo. But don’t make any promises to see her, because we don’t know what her family is doing.’
‘Oh.’ I’m sorry. ‘Okay.’
And he trotted back to the pool, where Julie was climbing the ladder. They talked again, Ian’s arms a third person in the conversation. She gave him a hug. And tousled his hair.
And my son returned, floating, toes dancing across the cold pools of water left on the concrete. Dazed and embarrassed, smiling but not sure why because this was bigger than him. His eyes turned to me, unfocused.
‘Wh…why’d she do that?’
I grinned, knowing the courage it took to ask and the power behind it. ‘Because she likes you.’
I take Ian to school on Wednesdays, which means I work late to make up the difference. It took him a while to get there, but I think Ian misses me, too:
‘I’m OK, but I’m sorted. That means when you break the rules, you get really tired.
And please do the stuff that you don’t know, and when you’re done with work, I still love you. When you’re at work, I know you want to be with me and you’re sad.’
Not all who wander are four years old. Just most of them.
I’ve never worked the day after Christmas, before. Ian and Kelly are both on vacation, but I’m at work. Early, because we have a plane to catch on Friday afternoon.
We gave Ian a soccer ball for Christmas. We took the ball to a park yesterday, because it was sunny and fifty-four degrees. Today’s not as nice, but that wouldn’t have mattered.
I was spoiled yesterday, with a refurbished PS2 and Guitar Hero. Ian slung the guitar over his shoulder and swung his hips in time to Message in a Bottle. He was terrible, so I played with his hands on mine; he didn’t stop dancing. He played air-drums when it was my turn.
I wrote Kelly and told her that I didn’t like being here, that I missed Ian. She said that Ian woke up and asked when I’d be home.
Ian’s class shares a writing kit, which each student takes home for one week. Assignment #3 was to create a menu and act as a server for a family member. The former half of the exercise didn’t make for exciting viewing, but the latter was better—if only to hear Ian’s ‘job’ voice.
In the car, returning from breakfast. Ian has yet to find a gift for Mommy. He and I are going, shopping, that afternoon.
He doesn’t want to.
‘An electric can-opener and thermal socks,’ instructs his mother. ‘That’s what I want.’ Shopping with Daddy will be painful enough without thermal socks.
‘Oh,’ rescues Grammie, ‘you can have my can-opener. I never use it.’
Silence, while he churns. ‘Mommy, what kind of socks do you want’ he asks, setting us up, building his case.
Ian and I spent quite some time yesterday playing Hide the Shoe. Despite my son’s flair for complex rules of engagement, the game is as simple as it sounds: hide the shoe, find the shoe. Clues are allowed, as are ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ nudges.
Ian’s hiding spots were easy to find; he giggled whenever I entered the correct room. Once he came downstairs holding a stuffed chicken that I hadn’t seen in months; I knew he’d hidden the shoe in the spot where all his animals go to be forgotten.
He told me the shoe was hidden ‘under something cozy’, and I started looking under pillows.
Giggle. ‘Waaarrrm.’ Giggle. ‘Colder!’ Giggle. ‘Hot! Scorpion hot!’ He meant ‘scorching’. I found the shoe under the armchair.
His hiding spots weren’t always easy. ‘Cold. Cooolder! Iceberg cold!’
We spent the week eating corn fritters in the morning and ice cream in the evening, walking on the beach and building sand castles.