Page 123 of Sweet Little Thing

He nodded. “She called, but she didn’t tell me. She said she was visiting you. But that’s it.”

He didn’t ask if she’d come. He was eight years old and didn’t care if his mother was coming to see him. I had asked her to come with me, but she’d gotten a call from her married boyfriend and left in tears. I wasn’t sure if I would return to her at my place or if she had left for Chicago.

“She was supposed to. I’m sorry. I should have called,” I told him. He needed to be reassured. He didn’t get that anywhere else in his world. Hilda should have thought of that. But she would rarely think beyond her needs and wants.

“Can I come to Savannah with you?” He asked me this a lot. He wanted to stay with me. My father never allowed it. He said I was too busy to fool with “the kid.” And he’d said it in front of Wills.

“Soon. I promise,” I replied. “But today, we are going to the M&M store to get you a large bag of the blue ones you love with whatever word you want on them this time. Then I thought we’d visit the zoo and throw the football.”

“I don’t have a football,” he said seriously.

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot the part where we buy one at Nike Town,” I added.

He was grinning now. The last time I visited, he told me he didn’t have a football and wanted to learn to throw one.

“Can we leave now?” He wiggled to get down out of my arms.

“Absolutely. I need some of those yellow M&M’s.”

He smirked. At that moment, I saw myself—a picture from my youth. It was different now, I knew. I wasn’t imagining the similarities—they were there, and they were real. He was my son.

“Yellow is a girl color,” he told me as if I should know this.

“Like hell it is,” I argued.

“You should get blue or green,” he said with authority. “Even red is better than yellow.”

“Don’t bully me. I’ll get pink if you do,” I warned him.

His eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Hell, yeah, I will. Takes a real man to eat the pink ones,” I told him.

He frowned. “You can’t get the pink ones anywhere but at the M&M store. They don’t even put those in the bag.” He said this as if it was very important.

I shrugged. “Too bad.”

“Do you think we can go to the zoo to watch the Sea Lion’s get fed?” He changed the subject once again.

“I’ll check the time on my phone, and we’ll be there for it.”

“In the next couple of months, they’ll start eating more than normal. They do that to prepare for the winter. Makes them fatter, and the fat makes them warmer.”

I was impressed he knew that. “Did you learn about it in school?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Did you read a book about it?” I asked him.

“Saw a video about it on YouTube,” was his response.

“Would you want a book about animals?” I asked him not liking that he had so much screen time.

He nodded. “Yeah, that would be cool.”

I’d buy him every book they had at the store if he wanted them.

Chapter

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