Mack Daddy(27)

“Yes.”

“It’s not one-sided, Frankie. I know you can feel that from me, because I don’t hide my jealousy very well.”

“You know, it’s pretty pathetic that the best part of my weekend is always when you come home. You asked me why I wasn’t downstairs…I was kind of hoping you didn’t find me.”

“Damn, it’s come to that, huh?” He smiled.

“I need to break the pattern, get used to you not being around, not just for the summer but the long term. This is not healthy.”

He gripped my hand tighter and just continued to look at me as I continued.

“I’ve gotten attached to you, Mack—way more than a friend should.”

“I know it’s f*cked-up, Frankie. This whole experience in Boston was just supposed to be a temporary reprieve for me, to figure out my future, to get away from home. I wasn’t expecting that being here would feel more like home. That’s because of you. You weren’t part of the plan. At all.”

“I don’t want to have these feelings for you.”

“I used to tell myself I’d eventually tell Torrie about you. But the longer I put it off, the harder it’s become, because my feelings for you now are more complicated than they used to be in the beginning. I’m afraid she’ll see through me. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to you. I’m just so f*cking confused about everything. All I know is…I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

“I know that.” I nodded. “This summer apart might be a good thing.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right.”

We sat in silence for a while after that, staring at the Fenway lights and listening to the sounds of the cheering baseball fans.

I looked down again at our interlocked fingers, knowing that I could count on one hand the number of days left before he would be gone.





The students had been assigned to draw a picture of their families before recess. It was part of a lesson on the diversity of the family structure in America. As I was looking through the kids’ submissions, I stopped upon Jonah’s, which was very telling.

Three harsh lines were drawn in thick black crayon between the images of his mother, father, and him. Oddly, Jonah had drawn Torrie with a smile on her face but had drawn Mack and himself with frowns. The drawing clearly depicted how he viewed his current family situation along with his emotional state.

While it wasn’t my place to analyze the boy’s artistic interpretation of his home life, I couldn’t help but want to talk to him. Maybe it was inappropriate to be giving his drawing any special attention over the others, but I couldn’t seem to ignore it. The truth was, he reminded me a lot of myself when I was younger.

As was typical, Jonah was playing off to the side of the schoolyard, kicking around a ball, separated from the other students. I took the opportunity to try to talk to him before recess ended.

“Hey, Jonah. Can I speak to you for a minute?”

He simply nodded and followed me inside and down the corridor.

Back in the classroom, I took a seat next to him. “So, I was looking at your drawing here, and it sort of caught my eye because of how different it was. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just wanted to talk to you about it.”

Jonah continued to remain quiet but attentive.

“First off, I want to make sure you understand that there are all sorts of families. Families with parents who are together, families with two mothers, two fathers, families with one parent. Let me show you a picture of my family.”

I walked over to my desk and grabbed a drawing that I had quickly put together myself right before. It showed my mother and me on one side and a cut out piece of black construction paper pasted onto the other side of the page.

“So, this is my family. It looks different than yours but nevertheless, still a family. I never got to meet my dad. So, he’s sort of like a mystery to me. That’s why he’s represented in black.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, Jonah. He decided he didn’t want to be a father before I was born. But you know what? I had a great mother. And she took really good care of me. But see…I wanted to share my story with you so that you understand that not everyone has a storybook family. That was my reason for this project, to demonstrate that. If your mom and dad aren’t living together, you’re not alone. It’s okay to be upset about that, because emotions are natural. We can’t help them. But you have two parents who love you. I can assure you of that. They will always love you, even if they aren’t together.”

“Your dad didn’t love you?”

“He didn’t know me. And he was very young.”

“Do you forgive him?”

The kid had totally stumped me, because that was a question I truly didn’t know the answer to.

I hesitated before answering, “That’s a tough question.” I rustled his curls playfully. “Can I come back to you on that?”

“Yeah,” he said, cracking a slight smile that was reminiscent of Mack.

“Just remember it’s okay to be different. That goes for when you start to feel like you’re not blending in with the other kids. You remind me a lot of myself when I was younger. I used to wear glasses just like you, too.”