He’s been brave all his life, and if books were what he wanted, then I’d spoil him until he was old enough to buy them himself.
“Of course we can. Is there a special book you’d like to read?” I asked, looking at him through the rearview mirror.
He had his eyes on the book in his lap but was able to have this conversation with me.
“I think I want a book about mommies and daddies.”
That almost made me slam on the brakes.
Shit, where did that come from?
I stopped at a red light and turned to look at him, but he didn’t seem too fazed by his answer.
“Has Grandma talked to you about mommies and daddies today?” I asked.
He had never mentioned his mother, but then, I never thought he knew he had one.
One who sadly wasn’t around to see him grow.
Ira shook his head, then he pointed into the book. “This girl has a mommy.”
I looked at the picture and nodded, sighing softly. “Yeah, she does.”
“Does she have a daddy too?”
I was a hundred percent sure he didn’t get the concept of parents, as he mostly saw his friends with either their mom or dad, but not both at the same time.
“Probably, yeah.” I was having issues with this.
First of all, talking about this in a car was a little inconvenient, and secondly…how the fuck would I tell my son that his mother died during his birth?
“I want a book about mommies.”
And that was final because he didn’t say another word about it.
How come every time I had something to deal with, other things piled up on top of that and made everything even harder?
Guess luck wasn’t on my side these days, but I surely wouldn’t ignore Ira’s need to talk about mothers.
I owed this to him, and the sooner he learned about what happened, the easier it would be to deal with it.
At least that’s what I hoped for.
“Here we are. Ready to meet Dr. Cole?” I asked as I helped him out of the car.
Ira gave me a quick nod and reached up to let me pick him up once I closed the car door, and together we walked inside to get to the front desk.
“Hi, I’m Ira and I get my new pump today!” he said, filled with excitement.
The woman sitting behind the desk smiled at us and nodded. “Dr. Cole has been waiting on you, Ira. You can go straight to his office.”
“Thank you,” I smiled and walked down the hall to get to Dr. Cole’s office, and once we were there, I knocked on the open door to get his attention.
“Come in. I heard someone’s getting a new pump today!”
“I do! A bigger one!” Ira announced.
“That’s right! Just a little bigger, but it’s much better and also very new,” he explained.
I sat Ira down on the bed and stood by him to assure him I was right there with him while Dr. Cole prepared a few things.
“What did you do today, Ira?” he asked, starting a conversation to calm him a little.
Ira knew he could trust him, yet he was still nervous which was okay.
“I was at my grandma’s house and we painted and went to the park!” he told the doc.
“That sounds like a lot of fun. What’s your favorite thing to do at the park?”
“I liked the monkey bars!”
I smiled, remembering how frustrated he was earlier this year when he couldn’t even hold on to the bars without me helping him.
He managed to go across it on his own a few months ago, and he was really getting better at keeping himself up there.
“You’re a strong one then, hm?”
Ira nodded, agreeing with his doctor.
“All right. See? This is your new pump. It looks about the same, but it has a few different buttons to regulate the insulin,” he explained, talking to me now.
I looked closely to make sure not to miss any information that was important for me to know, and Ira just stared at the pump and watched Dr. Cole to make sure he wouldn’t do anything that could hurt him.
I rubbed his back gently to let him know that there would be nothing to hurt him, and he leaned against me as he pushed his hand into his hair to twirl it around his fingers.
“The only button you need to know is the on and off button, plus this one where you can check the insulin level. Just press the button for three seconds and the numbers will