Like today.
My birthday.
This didn’t count the nights. Tuck said I could come anytime at night, I just had to be careful.
So I did.
Whenever the words came, me and Bootsie would sneak out of the house and go to Tuck’s. I’d knock on the window and, always, my knuckles would barely hit the glass before it flew up. Sometimes, he’d stick his head out and tell me he’d meet me in the woods. If his Mom was gone, he’d stick the whole top of his body out the window, grab me under my arms and pull me in. Then he’d go back out, hanging almost all the way out so every time he did it I was scared he’d fall but he never did, and he did this so he could grab Bootsie and bring her in with us.
In the woods or in his bedroom, we’d talk and even though he was a whole lot older than me, we always had tons of stuff to talk about. What we liked to eat. TV programs we liked to watch. Movies we’d seen. Folks in town. He’d talk about his Dad. I’d talk about my Mom and my visits with her when she’d come get me and take me to Lexington for her weekends with me.
If we spent time in the woods or in his bedroom, no matter what, he’d walk me home to the back gate of the fence around my backyard.
The lake came into view and I saw him, his tanned bare back to me, sitting on the end of the pier and just like always, seeing him made my belly feel funny. The kind of funny it felt right before you got on a ride at the carnival or amusement park. That kind of funny.
I stopped my bike by his, jumped off, grabbed the stuff in my basket and laid my bike on its side in the grass.
Then I raced down the path to the pier, jumped up on it and raced down the wood planks.
Tuck turned and watched me, his lips curled up.
I stopped at the end and my, “Hi!” sounded breathy.
“Hi,” Tuck replied.
I shoved the frozen Snickers bars at him. “Brought ‘em!” I cried and then flipped off my shoes and sat down beside him at the end of the pier.
His legs were dangling down, so long, his feet were covered in water up past his ankles. My legs were so short I had to point my toes for the water to skim the tips.
He took a Snickers bar and started to rip it open.
I ripped open mine and bit hard into the frozen caramel and nougat.
“I couldn’t make a picnic. She was in the kitchen,” I told him through Snickers bar.
“That’s okay, Sylvie,” he told me through a mouth full of his.
“But she’s, you know…” I didn’t tell him what he knew and kept talking. “So she’s out of it. We can swim and do it for a long time. Daddy’s away on business and she’ll probably be sleeping when I get home so we can spend all day here if we want.”
“Your Dad’s gone on your birthday?”
They way he said that made me turn my head and look up at him.
“Yeah.”
He stared at me then looked back at the water, lifted his Snickers bar to his mouth and bit off a huge chunk.
I felt bad since he didn’t have a Dad and I knew, with the way he talked about him, that what he would want most in the whole world was his Dad being there for his birthday. I didn’t really care if Daddy was at mine. In fact, he always made me wear dresses that were too fancy on my birthday so it felt mean, but I was kinda glad he wasn’t.
We sat together and sifted our feet through the water, staring at it and chewing on our Snickers bars and we did this until Tuck finished his. He shoved the wrapper in his cutoff jeans shorts pocket. Then he dug in his other one and I watched him come out with a little, white cardboard box.
He handed it to me.
“Happy birthday, Sylvie.”
I stared down at the box then I looked up at him. “Wow.”
He grinned at me.