Sidebarred: A Legal Briefs Novella(13)

He stares down at the blacktop between his feet, and his voice falls even softer. Monotone.

“The night my parents got into the accident, we were with a babysitter. She was in college, I think—one of my dad’s interns. She didn’t tell us they were . . . gone. Only that they’d been in a car accident, that Aunt Chelsea was on her way. She said we should think good thoughts, and pray.” He looks up at me with shiny eyes, drowning with remembered grief. “So I did. I prayed really hard, Jake.” His voice breaks, choking on the words. “It didn’t help.”

Raymond turns away as his face crumples. Because he’s thirteen years old—and boys aren’t supposed to cry. But I wrap my arm around him, pull him tight against me.

Because as far as I’m concerned, he can cry all he f*cking wants.

His shoulders shudder and his face presses against my shirt. I rest my lips on his dark hair—which smells like grass and still-childish sweat. And my heart breaks for him, because there’s nothing I can say. No words to make this better. It’s just something he has to feel. Go through.

All I can do is hold on to him.

When the worst of it seems to pass, when his shaking turns to sniffling, I crouch down in front of him, my hands on his bony knees. “Raymond, sometimes, in life, brutal, unfair things happen to us. You don’t need me to tell you that. But there’s a lot of good, too. Unexpected, beautiful good. And if you spend all your time worrying about the bad stuff, you might miss out on enjoying all the amazing things. I don’t want that for you—your parents wouldn’t want that for you, either.”

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Are you scared? For Aunt Chelsea?”

I tilt my head. “Well, I am now. Thanks for that.”

He snorts—a wet, clogged sound—because he knows I’m teasing.

But, then, I realize I’m not.

“Yeah. Sometimes I get scared.”

“What do you do when that happens?”

I blow out a breath. “I focus on the things I can change, on the things I can do to make a difference. I mean, you have to know that your aunt is young and she has the best doctors—so the odds that this will happen without a single problem are really good.”

He nods. “Yeah, I know that.”

I squeeze his leg. “Then here’s what we’re going to do—you and me together. We’ll take care of her, make sure she rests and eats right, and we’ll think about how nuts and awesome it’s going to be to have a baby in the house again.”

That prompts a small smile.

“And when you get scared, when those dark worries creep up on you, you don’t look at your computer in the middle of the night. You bring those worries to me, okay? Because you’re not alone, Raymond. We’ll talk about it and figure things out together. Can you do that for me?”

Raymond takes his glasses off, dries them on his T-shirt, then slides them back on.

“Yeah, Jake, I can do that.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

I give his head another hug as I stand—smacking him on the back.

“Let’s head inside for dinner.”

Raymond peers out into the backyard. “I’m gonna stay out here for a few minutes if that’s okay?”

“Sure. Totally okay.”

I walk back toward the house but only make it a few steps before Raymond calls my name. When I turn around, he says, “You know, Jake, my dad was a really great dad.”

I smile. “I know. I can tell by how you guys are turning out.”

Raymond thinks for a moment, choosing his words. “You’re pretty great at the dad stuff, too.”

Kids are incredible—their insight, their capacity to adapt and accept, grow and love. They’re powerful, too. We’d all be in some seriously deep shit if they ever realized just how much power they have over us. Because the warm, tingling, insanely proud, totally devoted feeling that spreads through me—it’s indescribable. And Raymond did that. He gave me that.

I clear my throat. “Thanks, Raymond. That . . . means a lot.”

He nods. And then goes back to playing basketball.

And I head into the house to kiss my wife again, and help take care of the other minions.

****

Later that night, after homework is done, the dishes are clean, and the kids are all tucked in their beds, I sit alone at the kitchen table with a bottle of scotch and a half-empty glass in front of me. Chelsea walks in, her hair pinned up from her bath, dressed in cotton, pastel-pink pajamas. Her steps slow when she sees me. And I feel her eyes drift to the bottle, then back to me.

She knows me, inside and out—knows I’m not a drinker. Unless there’s a reason. So she pulls out a chair and quietly sits down. The crystal-blue eyes that own my dreams, hold me in their grasp.

“What’s going on, Jake?”

I sip the scotch, then watch the amber liquid bob when I set the glass back down on the table. My voice comes out hushed but certain. “I would pick you.”

“What do you mean?”

Finally, I look up at her, and I know my face is clouded with guilt. “In that scenario that always plays out on TV shows, when the doctors tell the father he has to choose between the life of the baby or the life of the mother . . . I would pick you.”

Her head tilts to the side and her voice is so soft. “I would want you to pick the baby.”