Her dad thought it was hilarious.
That was two months ago. It’s been four months now of me splitting my time between the academy during the week, and then alternating weekends back home and at the farm. Most of the time, Tammy travels with Mia and Benny. Once a month, her dad joins us.
I’ve gotten to know Joseph Kovács on a level I never thought I would or—more specifically—never thought I’d want to. It was on my third weekend at the farm when I woke up at six to go on my morning run, and he was there, on the porch steps, stretching, preparing to do the same. We had this awkward little standoff for a good few seconds before he laughed, and I found myself nervously laughing with him. We run together most mornings when he’s at the farm, and we talk. Well, he talks, and I listen. He tells me about his work mainly, but every now and then, he’ll talk about Mia and Benny. Sometimes he’ll get real quiet afterward as if his mind is consumed with other thoughts. One time, when we got back from a run, he said, “Listen, about Mia… I’m—” I swear he was about to apologize, though I don’t know what for, and besides, I’m not the one he needs to apologize to.
One time he asked me what I had to do to get Virginia to sign the divorce papers, and I told him the truth—that I called her a bitch for the way she’d treated Mia, and since that didn’t work, I threatened to call her current employer and reveal all the times she made sexual passes at my dad… and us. The last part was lie. But whatever it took, I was making sure I wasn’t leaving until those papers were signed. I’m pretty sure that was the moment I won him over.
Mia says that he’s really working hard to make up for the mistakes he made in the past. He often tells her that walking out on her was his biggest regret, and then coming back for her only to watch his father die—it kind of messed with his head. She’s too grown now for him to be a father to her, but he tries. And he’s a really good grandfather to Benny, which is all that matters. She says he has a hard time expressing his emotions, so he shows his love and devotion to them in other ways—mainly by spoiling them with material things they don’t necessarily want or need. But, she understands that it’s his way of trying to heal the pain of their past, so she lets him.
Tammy spends most of her time at the farm working on the memorial garden for John at the back of the house. She doesn’t love New York or the lavish lifestyle that her fiancé leads, but she does love Joseph, always has and always will, and so she makes compromises. Because, as she once said while I was helping her dig a hole for a lemon tree, “That’s what love is, Leo. A compromise.” I’d looked over at Benny and Mia then, the two of them lying together on a picnic blanket in the grass, their hands raised, fingers aimed to the sky as they pointed out images formed by the clouds.
I know that at some point, Mia and I will have to have The Talk. We’d discussed having The Talk in the future so often that we could’ve had The Actual Talk by now. The problem is, I’m still at the academy, and until that’s done, I won’t be able to make any decisions regarding my future. Or maybe that’s just our way of justifying it, because the truth is, I don’t think either of us knows how to go forward once it’s over. We’ll have no more excuses, and we’ll have to deal with reality, and that reality sucks.
I’ve come to hate the word “visit” because I don’t feel like my son should “visit” me, or I should “visit” him. And sure, that works for other people, but it doesn’t work for me.
I spend almost every waking second with Benny doing whatever the hell he wants. He wants to go on an adventure? We’re going on an adventure. He wants me to stand like a statue and have him climb me? Sure, bud. Hop on. He wants to have a pretend dinner party with rocks as our guests? I’m cooking whatever he wants to serve them. He