kisses. “Let’s go. Don’t want to be late for your burger and fries!”
Aiden offered a half smile as he trailed behind his mother.
“Bye, Dad.” He paused and waved. Aries tossed on a grin.
“Bye, Aiden. Have fun. Hey, Ashley!”
She turned and looked at him, hatred in her piercing blue eyes.
“What?”
“7:00 p.m. Have him back.”
When Aiden walked out onto the porch, she made her sentiments clear by slamming the door in his face.
“Bitch,” Aries mumbled under his breath as he locked it. Moments later, he was pacing back and forth in the living room, smoking a cigarette and listening to ‘Your Love,’ by The Outfield. The house was so damn quiet. There were no bursts of choppy, juvenile laughter from Aiden, no hearing the toilet flush or him talking to his friends on one of his gaming systems. There was no begging for another game off Amazon, asking for a ride to a friend’s house to do Lord knew what, or whispers about some girl who now attended their school. Or worse yet, chatter for the past three days about the new teacher with the big boobs.
Aiden made a lot of damn noise in that house. He was like a twenty-four-hour radio station that only played raucous hullabaloo and for six out of the twenty-four, whistling snores, but Aries had grown to love all that commotion. When Aiden wasn’t around, he always noticed… always felt it. It’s his energy.… My boy keeps me young… Keeps me smiling…
He’d never believed in such things until fairly recently, this idea of energy, the shit people carry when they move through life a certain way.
I guess I did believe it; I just called it something different. What that was, I’m not sure, but I could pick it up sometimes, whatever IT is. Too bad I was too young and sprung to see Ashley was full of shit. What a mistake… At least she gave me Aiden, though. I got something good out of the deal.
Parenthood was hard. The hardest damn job he’d ever had. When he got married, he was excited to start a family but he had no idea what he was up against. Trying to watch what he said, so as to not break the boy’s spirit with his brute honesty, had to be the worst part. It was difficult to not attempt to mold the child into someone he wanted him to be, instead of allowing him options –educating him on the pros and cons of those choices as best as he could muster. An unbiased perspective. He’d even attended a parenting class to try and get himself together after the divorce. He’d read in a book that many times, things that happened to him and Ashley they could pass on to Aiden. He definitely didn’t want that. His childhood had been no bed of roses. In fact, there were few petals, but plenty of thorns.
He talked to his son about these things from time to time, even the shit he didn’t really want to go into much depth about. Regardless, he was truthful with Aiden about almost everything. Except his mother. He simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. How does one tell their kid that their mother is a whore, fraud and a user? All the shit that led to the divorce, the lies, affairs, horrible fights – he’d tried to not allow that toxin to spill over and poison his son. It was bad enough that he’d been infected, jaded to his core. He had a hard time trusting women ever since. Beautiful serpents. He paused his pacing to rest his cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table.
He watched the smoke drift from it like distant memories while The Police sang ‘Every Breath You Take.’ Flashes of his time with Owen in that open pasture among the wild flowers and lavender, the smell of fresh tomatoes from the vine, hanging heavy and ripe from Grandma’s garden, and the roar of that old static-filled radio she’d set on the front porch flooded his mind. This very song would play over and over that one summer. It had settled like a stain on his mind.
I wonder what my father was doing while I was runnin’ around in the meadow? I wonder a lot about shit I didn’t care about even just two weeks ago. I hate that I care. I hate that I wish I knew who the hell he was. I can’t ask him. I can’t ask Mom, either…
He took