Page 99 of Make It Without You

“Hmm,” she muses as she tries to remember that far back. “I think my parents took me for ice cream. Since it was February and we were living in New York, it was too cold to do anything outside. But I claimed very early on that it was never too cold for ice cream.”

I plate the rest of breakfast and put everything on the island. Dylan grabs more than what he can eat and Emily laughs when she sees how full his plate is.

“Can you eat all of that?” She asks him.

“Mm-hmm. I have to eat all my food so I can grow big and strong like my daddy.”

Emily looks at me over the top of his head with a twinkle in her eyes. “Big and tall like your daddy, huh?”

Watch it, I mouth.

“Yeah and then I can get stronger and play baseball forever.”

“I don’t know about forever, buddy,” I tell Dylan.

He shrugs and eats most of his food before he pushes away his plate. “When are we going to the zoo?”

“In a few hours. I need to clean up and you need to shower. Get off all of that syrup.”

“Okay.” Dylan says, slinking off his chair and heading upstairs.

Emily and I take our cleared plates and Dylan’s half-eaten food to the sink. She rinses the dishes and I load them into the dishwasher.

“First meal done,” I praise once everything is wiped down.

Emily leans with her back against the counter and I mirror her position on the opposite side.

“It does get easier,” she claims. “My life is so much different now.”

“How so?”

“I thought I’d be married and have a kid, maybe two, by now. Living in a house.” She crosses the small distance, wrapping her arms around my waist and looks up at me. “You’re not a consolation prize. I don’t want you to think that. You are the prize. If it makes me a bad person for saying that I’m glad my life looks different, then so what.”

I didn’t think I was a consolation prize. But I’m glad she cleared that up. “I think you’d be a great mom. As much as I hate the way your past affected you I am glad that you ended up here.”

I holdup my phone and take a picture of my two hearts while they watch the lions in the enclosure. We’ve been at the zoo for just over two hours. Most of which was spent running through the water sprinklers to hopefully cool off.

Summer has made itself known. There hasn’t been a day when the temperature wasn’t in the nineties. Maybe I should’ve insisted we do a children’s museum instead. But then I wouldn’t have seen the smile or heard the laughter spilling from my son’s mouth. I wouldn't have seen the pure joy emanating from Emily at her first zoo experience. These are the moments that make being with them special.

“What’s your favorite animal?” Dylan asks Emily.

The awkward band-aid has been ripped off. As soon as we entered the park, Dylan grabbed Emily’s hand and toted her where he wanted to go.

“My favorite animals are squirrels and geese. But I also really like tigers. Maybe it has to do withAladdinand how Jasmine had Rajah as her pet. I always thought that was cool.”

“That would be really cool.”

“What’s your favorite animal?” Emily asks back.

“Sharks,” Dylan claims proudly.

Emily blanches and I can’t stop the bark of laughter from escaping.

“Why sharks?”

“Because they’re so cool!” Dylan claims.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Emily hesitantly says.

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