“Why didn’t you eat any lunch?” I asked from the kitchen where I was helping Rocco with his backpack. We’d just walked in the door a minute earlier and I was equal parts eager and anxious to hear about Gavin’s first day.
“I did.” Whine. “But they had me running around so much I burned that off by about one o’clock. I forgot how much sweat a human body can produce in a day.”
Eww.
“I’m hungry too, Mommy,” Rocco said as he pulled off his shoes and left them in the middle of the floor—right by the dried up, half-chewed Cocoa Krispies I’d forgotten about from this morning. Double eww.
“Okay, baby.” I grabbed the paper towel roll from the counter and went to the sink to wet a few. “How does frozen pizza sound?” I called to the other room.
“Make it two, and no veggies!” came the response from Gavin.
“Yeah, no veggies!” Rocco echoed.
I smiled. I know I probably shouldn’t. But when I didn’t stop to think too hard about whether or not Gavin was the best influence on my son, I was so grateful that there was a man in his life on a consistent basis. One who would never flake out on him and suddenly find something better to do. Sometimes it even seemed that the similarity in their maturity levels was, in fact, the very glue that bonded them.
I admit that one of my fears when my mom and dad moved was that Rocco would be left with just me, and I would be depriving him of the opportunity to have loving and reliable men in his life. That was definitely a contributing factor in my decision to allow Gavin to move in with us.
My biggest fear has always been messing my kid up.
I just had to keep reminding myself that, in the battle for Rocco’s well-being, a guy who loves him will beat out veggies every time.
As awesome as my kid is, he obviously did not just spontaneously appear in my womb one day—as if my ovaries were having a boring day and said, “Hey, you know what would be fun?” No, he was the result of numerous lime gelatin shots, a hot friend-of-a-friend musician visiting from California, and some extraordinarily bad judgment on everyone’s part.
Dominic, Rocco’s dad, is actually a nice guy and I have to give him some credit. After the initial, and expected, freak-out when I’d tracked him down by phone with the news every nineteen-year-old guy wants to hear—guess what? It’s a boy!—he’d tried to step up the best way he knew how. It had been three months since the fateful deed in the back seat of a borrowed extended-cab truck (I know—don’t remind me), and only three days since I’d finally stopped Linda Blair-ing my guts out with morning sickness. As I sat on my bed in my childhood room clutching my cellphone, we had discussed possible options—me moving to California, him moving to North Carolina—but in the end, it had just made sense for each of us to stay put. My family was here, and I was midway through my freshman year of college. His family was scattered, but he had just been accepted into a very prestigious music program, and while his family had quite a bit of money, we’d both known that him dropping out and moving across the country for his knocked-up one-night stand would not go over well.
As cringe-worthy as it sounds, we were complete strangers. And while neither of us wanted Dominic to be a stranger to his child, uprooting hadn’t been the best plan. So I had stayed here and Dominic had flown out for the birth. And after a paternity test, which his family’s lawyer had naturally insisted on, a reasonable arrangement for child support was agreed upon and we worked out visitation. Dominic, even now, didn’t make much money, but with his family’s resources he made sure we got what we needed financially.
And he does love his son—I know this. But I don’t know if he’ll ever love anyone more than he loves his music, and that’s not what I want for Rocco in a full-time dad.
Now Dominic flies out to take Rocco for a few weeks every year between breaks in his busy touring schedule. And we all forge ahead. But at night when I lie in bed and rehash all the parenting decisions I could have handled differently that day—not to mention all the calories I shouldn’t have eaten and all the chores I should have completed—I often wish to the bottom of my soul that our story of mother and son had begun differently. That instead of a duo, we were some incredible kick-ass trio.
I set the oven to preheat and attempted to ease into a group discussion so I could covertly interrogate Gavin about his job. I began with Rocco. “So, Rock, did you and your new friends do anything fun at school today?”
“Nah.” He twitched his little nose.
“What do you mean, ‘nah’? You were there all day.”
Another change since we’d branched out on our own, Rocco was attending a new school—otherwise known as daycare—for the full day instead of the half day of preschool we’d done while living with my parents. Once I’d pushed past the guilt, I could appreciate that this was actually a positive change for him. He’d spent the majority of his time around adults before, and it was high time he made some friends his own age.
I moved to the half wall between the kitchen and the living room to find Rocco mimicking his uncle as he lay in my favorite cushy armchair, hand to his gut and head thrown back.
“I dunno,” was his complete response.
“Well, what did you do all day?”
“Don’t ‘member.” He shrugged and twitched his nose again.
Well, how do you respond to that? I guessed it was time to move on to the next topic.
“Okay. How about you, Uncle Gavin? Did you do anything fun with your new friends today?”
Gavin’s head came off the couch to fix me with narrowed eyes. “Am I allowed to say I don’t remember either?” Taking in my look he said, “Yeah, I thought not. It was okay, I guess. They all treated me like the newbie, as expected. Most of the guys were okay, some of them were dicks—I mean, jerks.” He glanced Rocco’s way, but the little guy was unfazed. “It was mostly a lot of lifting things and holding this or that while somebody secured it.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I commented. “Where were you?”
“I was at some apartment complex off New Garden, but the boss said they might move me to the grocery store on Friendly or maybe even the commercial building going in at the end of our street. I told him I lived here so I think he might try to put me on that one, which would be cool.”
“What commercial building?” I asked, unfamiliar with anything being built by our neighborhood.
“I don’t know, some building they’re putting up with rental spaces—right at the entrance.”
That was odd. “There are houses on either side.”
“Don’t ask me—it’s my first day. Nate said the houses were in foreclosure so they got the properties at a really good price. They’re gonna tear them down and put something else up.”
Apprehension speared my gut, but I pushed it aside. “So it sounds like you met a lot of people for your first day. That’s good,” I led.
“I guess.”
What was it with guys? Would it kill them to share a little?
“Well, since Mom and Dad aren’t here, someone has to say it. I’m proud of you, Gav,” I told him. “I know this isn’t your dream job but I’m glad you’re moving on.”
His sudden frown had me regretting my last statement. Stupid!
He inhaled and then sighed. “It’s no major league game, but whatever. It is what it is.”
“What’s a commercial building? Will it sell toys from the TV?” asked Rocco as the oven dinged—time to put in the pizzas.
“Uncle Gavin will explain.” I turned back to the kitchen to make dinner for my guys. Baby steps, Laney, baby steps.
My phone rang an hour later. Gavin was busy holding a giggling Rocco upside-down in the living room and shaking him to get the pizza to reappear. I was adding dishes to the growing pile in the sink, telling myself I’d get to them later. The number on the caller ID was unfamiliar, but I pressed Accept.
“Hello?”
“Oh hi. Is this Laney Monroe?”
“Yes.”
“This is Mellie Jordan from Cornerstone Daycare. How are you?”
Rocco’s daycare teacher.
“Oh hi, Mellie! I’m good—how about you?” We exchanged pleasantries.
“I’m just fine, Laney. Listen, I’m sorry to bother you at home. I was hoping to catch you when you picked Rocco up this afternoon, but I think I just missed you. I wanted to touch base on a couple things—nothing’s wrong, so don’t worry,” she reassured me.
“Okay, what’s up?” I asked.
“Well, first of all, I wanted to tell you that we all love Rocco here. He is just such a sweet little guy.”
My chest wanted to swell at this, but my motherly instincts were sensing a “but sandwich” on the horizon—your kid is great, but he’s pantsing all the other kids on the playground and we’ll have to expel him, but did I tell you we really think he’s great?
“But,” Mellie continued.
Here it comes.
“I’m just the teensiest bit concerned about him, socially speaking,” Mellie said.
My hand that wasn’t holding the phone went to my cheek and the rubbing began.
“He seems to spend most of his time playing by himself, and when we try to encourage him to join in with some of the other kids he says he doesn’t want to,” she continued.
Rub.
“I wouldn’t mention it since he’s new to the school and I know kids can be shy, but we just haven’t seen any improvement yet—I catch him looking at what other kids are doing so I think he’s interested, but he won’t go that next step. Sometimes one of us teachers will play with him to get the ball rolling and he’ll talk to us just fine. But not with the other kids.”
Rub rub.
“I’m not trying to scare you or anything because this is probably something we’ll look back on later and laugh about, but at his age, he really should be engaging in interactive play with other kids instead of parallel play we see with the younger ones. I wanted to ask, does he have friends in the neighborhood or from his old school he interacts with regularly? Am I just bothering you for nothing?” She laughed lightly.