Page 130 of Raven

“For me?” He skips toward it and turns it in his hands. “Can I open?”

“It’s yours.”

He unwraps it with the speed of lightning, his eyes widening when he finds a box with planets and stars on it. “Cool! The planets!”

“You don’t know what cool is,” I say. “Let’s set it up.”

I got him a ceiling projector with a map of the universe that glows in the dark. Maybe, I’ll teach him that darkness can be cool.

He looks confused when I set it up, point at the ceiling, and turn it on. The projection is barely discernible, but that’s because it’s still light outside. So I turn it off, close the blinds until it’s dark in the living room, and then turn it on again.

“Whoa!” Sonny jumps up from his seat, and his head cranes toward the ceiling as he spins in his spot. “Whoa! Rave! Look! Whoa!”

There are only so many times one can say, “Whoa.” Sonny can say it endlessly.

“Come here,” I beckon him, then lie down on my back in the center of the living room and motion for him to do the same. And we lie for some time like this, two starfishes, as I explain the planets. All the while wishing Maddy was with us. She probably knows more than me.

“You know, kiddo, I think Maddy might need you tonight,” I say to him finally. She might want to be alone, but she shouldn’t be.

The notification on my phone says my food has been delivered, and when I open the blinds and bring it in from outside the door, I don’t even take it to the kitchen.

“Want to take it to Maddy’s and eat it with her?”

Sonny’s eyes shift to the empty ceiling with some sort of nostalgia, then to me. “And you?” His eyes are almost pleading.

“I’ll be all right, kid. I think she’d really like some company. Just not mine.”

Right before he leaves, he takes a pen from my desk, walks over to the potted flower, and scribbles something on it.

His smile is sneaky. “I’m learning the alphabet,” he says proudly. “Saw they do this in movies.”

I wait until Skiba comes to pick him up, just a precaution, and he leaves. And here it is, another gaping hole in my heart. I fucking love this little dude being at my place.

I look at what he scribbled on Maddy’s flower, and it says, R+M.

My chest tightens. He didn’t finish writing, but he is right. R+M equals Rejection and Misery.

Soon, it’s dark outside, and I know it’s going to be another sleepless night. My ashtray will be full. My first glass of whiskey is already empty. But drowning in a bottle is a slippery slope. My job can’t have that. Sonny can’t have that.

I think of Maddy again, her bungalow with the flowers at the front, and my own flowers on the patio that were brought by the gardeners earlier today. Should I add one? For good luck? Wishful thinking?

Wishful kindness?

I imagine her sleeping, her chestnut hair splayed on the pillow, her favorite mint-green tank top bunched up around her waist. An open book on her nightstand. White socks left on the floor.

I light a cigarette, and the smoke from it curls around me, like a sign of some witchy ritual, conjuring the images of her.

Maybe, I need therapy.

I pour a glass of whiskey, stick a new cigarette in my mouth, walk to my desk, and pull a blank sheet of paper out of the drawer.

Here we go again.

Years of discipline and one woman is all it takes for it to fall apart.

These blank sheets all start the same. Either a letter to her, spilling thoughts onto the white paper, trying to reason with her. Or, most often, just the name that will forever be etched in my heart, no matter what happens in my life. That name and the letter that starts my usual by now list of beautiful things. Like some mindless mandala meditation.

M.

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