strange, intimate, ordinary moment that I almost forget everything that happened in the past few weeks. I push away the memories because I don’t want to remember them. This house, this home—it can be our bubble.
“You keep looking at me like that, Mia, and I’ll be late for my first day.”
After a quick grope of Leo’s parts—him, in his uniform? Jesus, take the wheel—Leo gives us a tour of the house. There are two bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs. The downstairs consists of the living room, laundry room and kitchen, and another smaller room off that kitchen. “Spare bedroom and your office—for if, or when, you might need to work from here,” he says, kissing my temple. He opens up the sliding door off the living room to an expansive yard and lets Benny free.
“Hey,” he says, taking both my hands in his. I try to grope him again, but he slaps my hand away. I scowl. “Can you guys be here when I get back, or do you have to go?”
“We’ll be here,” I assure.
“Yeah?”
I nod. “I’ll work on the whole Dad thing, too.”
He chuckles. “Walk me out?”
I call out, “Benny! Leo—I mean, your dad is leaving. Come say goodbye.”
“Oh, that’s good. Let’s just keep doing that,” Leo mumbles.
Benny and I walk with Leo out to his truck. “Good luck, daddy,” I say, kissing him quickly. When he pulls away, his eyes flash with heat... and I don’t quite understand why.
“Bye, Leo! Good luck!” Benny says, jumping in his spot until Leo picks him up and holds him tight.
“I’ll keep this recharge all day,” Leo tells him. He keeps his hold on our son as he kisses me once more.
“You’re going to do great, okay? Don’t worry.”
Leo shakes his head, putting Benny back on his feet. “I stopped worrying the moment you showed up.”
Benny and I stand side by side as Leo reverses onto the road, honking twice before taking off. Once he’s gone, Benny turns, looks up at me. “What do you want to do today, Mama?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Can we visit Preston?”
“You remember Preston?” It’s not like Benny to remember people’s names, especially from over two weeks ago.
Benny nods. “He’s my best friend,” he says, pulling me toward the house. “Can I keep playing in my room?”
“It’s a pretty cool room, huh?”
“It’s my favorite place in the world.”
“It is?”
“Where’s your favorite place in the world, Mama?”
I inhale a sharp breath, let it out slowly. “Maybe one day soon, I’ll show you.”
Benny spends the morning running between his bedroom and the yard, traipsing dirt throughout the house. Leo doesn’t have a lot of furniture, not even a couch or kitchen table, but he has enough cleaning products to service a small hotel. I make sure to clean up as much as I can. Surprisingly, his kitchen is pretty stocked up, and honestly, I’m impressed. He went from grilled chicken and steamed vegetables to—going by the ingredients he has—making pasta sauce from scratch. It must be all the impromptu cooking lessons I gave him in the barn.
I call Dad and let him know that we’re safe, and then, because I’m bored, I steal a piece of paper and a crayon—not blue—from Benny’s room, sit on the floor of the living room and draw out a quick floor plan of the house and where I recommend the furniture go for when he decides to buy it. Here, there’s only an old fold-out chair in front of a TV that’s sitting on a makeshift table and a bookshelf. Last night, when we went into the bedroom, it was too dark to see anything in there… and I was a little preoccupied with other things. This morning, I noticed that his bedroom is lined with open stacks of books piled taller than Benny. I assume that’s where all the books from the shelves in Benny’s room went. On this shelf, there are only a few books. I get up to inspect them. One has a black cover, no title, no author. Not even an image. It’s just a plain black book. But, the pages look worn, and the spine’s cracked in multiple places. When I flip through it, I notice Leo’s handwriting in the margins, as well as highlighted passages. I put it back on the shelf and move to the others. They’re all composition notebooks, and I pull one out and flip through it. It’s Leo’s handwriting, which is what I expected. What I don’t expect is my name.