to reach that finish line. A reward few can understand.
I’m sure Fred does not have that goal in mind when he says, “I bet I could do it!”
“You think you could?” He couldn’t sit still for even half a minute, but I’m a mother who encourages even the boldest of dreams. “Maybe we should paint you up and let you try it?”
“I’ll try it now.” His trepidation gone, he runs to the empty seat next to the bronze man and attempts to replicate his pose. His little face alternates between imitating the bronze man’s seriousness and a pleased smile with himself.
I bite back a laugh, wishing I’d brought my camera. I try not to take it out with us too often on our days together. This time is for him, and it’s hard to stay present in that when my mind is consumed with the business of making art.
Right now, though, I want to capture the image for the moment, not the craft. Remembering my mobile, I dig it from my purse and snap a pic on the rarely used camera app, impressed that Freddie has managed to hold the position this long.
“He’s a natural,” a familiar voice says at my side and like a pleasant breeze on a humid day, I feel a sudden relief.
Trying not to smile too widely, I peer over at Hendrix. “I suppose he is. It’s come as a surprise.”
Just then, Freddie begins to fidget. Just wrinkling his nose, twice, three times, as though it needs to be itched. “Perhaps I spoke too soon.”
Hendrix chuckles, the camera slung across his chest bouncing with the movement. “He seems to really be struggling there. Poor guy.”
“You’re doing great, Fred! Bravo!”
My encouragement draws a grin on my son’s face, wide and toothy. “Told you I could do it!” Then he’s up and running toward one of the other living statues. He clearly considers himself their newest coworker and I could watch this all day.
As I follow after him, without discussion, Hendrix does too, matching my stride.
I curse myself for being as thrilled as I am for his company. “Fancy seeing you here,” I say when I can’t think of anything else and the need to speak to him feels like a butterfly cupped in my hands, its wings beating desperately to escape.
“Yes. Quite a coincidence.”
I roll my eyes. At him. At me. No coincidence at all, actually, since the assignment I gave class the day before was to get some shots of the competition today. The statues are perfect models, their stillness removes variables and allows the photographer to focus on other elements—the light, the angle, the story. Also, the performers already expect to be photographed so there isn’t the ethics issue of taking pictures without permission, a debate many of my peers have had about snapping pics of people in the park.
“The exhibit goes on all day,” I protest. “I could have missed you.” It is honestly a stroke of luck that we happen to be here at the same time as he is. I’d tried to be, of course, but I had little hope that it would actually occur.
If I believed in that sort of thing, I might think the universe is trying to tell me something.
“You wouldn’t have missed me,” he says, and suddenly I know he’s been looking for me. That he likely arrived just as the event opened and planned to stay until it closed for just the shot at an encounter.
That patience of his. It unravels me.
Why am I here, why am I here, why am I here? When I told him this isn’t what I want. When I insisted to myself that this isn’t what I need. Maybe my truest addiction all along was to feeling the happiness he draws out in our talks.
I dragged my child into this tangled mess. How fucked up am I?
Though my selfish reasons for being here seem to be an accidental score because Fred is having a “dynamite” time running from statue to statue, posing next to them. He pretends to raise a gun with the green army men. At the group of golden cowboys, he adopts a tilt to his posture that allows him to fit right in. When he gets to the woman made up to look like a bronze replication of the queen, he bows deeply before her, his small legs teetering in the position.
He’s so funny and so fast flitting from one scene to the next that I hardly have time