Page 31 of Wildest Dreams

The woman had printed out a sixty-five-page manifesto annotating food allergies, preapproved activities, a schedule, a menu, and some kind of sorting system for her playdough. She then spent twenty minutes running through the manual with me to ensure I understood everything. Then she left me in a cloud of her perfume and anxiety, standing next to her almost four-year-old.

The child and I stared at each other reluctantly. She seemed just as unhappy as I was with the arrangement.

“So…do you wanna watch South Park or something while I build your bed?” I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Mommy says no TV,” she murmured, her big, dark blue eyes clinging to my face.

Riiight. Page fourteen, section B of the manual. How could I forget?

I grabbed said manual from the dining table and flipped through it, the child still openly gaping at me. There was a list of child-friendly activities Dylan had put together.

She was a mess, but I had to give it to her: she was an involved, loving, deeply caring parent.

“Uh, let’s see. Do you want to do some coloring?”

“No.”

“Puzzles?”

“Nope.”

“Arts and crafts? Letter tracing? Dress-up? Foil presents? Bake some cookies?”

“No, no, no, and no.” She shook her head violently.

I tossed the manual back on the table, exasperated. “Then what do you want to do?”

She pointed to the hallway.

“Get out of my sight?” I asked hopefully.

“Help build bed,” she huffed, folding her arms.

“You can’t,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”

“Don’t care.” She blew a raspberry at me. Her mother’s daughter, no doubt.

“Yeah, me either, actually, but social norms, et cetera.”

I didn’t want this kid to end up in the hospital. Mainly because I didn’t want to end up in one, and Dylan would murder me and then resurrect me just to kill me again in a different, more brutal way if we did. My eyes strayed from the kid to the dining table, where there were a bunch of crayons, and I had an idea.

“I’ll need someone to decorate the frame, I guess, if you’re up to that.”

She just stared at me as if I were talking to her in Amharic. I’d never spoken this much to a three-year-old before. “What do you mean?”

“I need you to make the bed pretty with your crayons,” I explained in simpler terms.

“Oh! Yes! I can do that.”

We got to work.

One of the very few perks of being the son of a carpenter/handyman who rarely showed up to work and instead sent his son to do his assignments for him was that I was very good with my hands. Especially with wood. All puns intended, naturally. I could build almost anything from scratch in no time. In college, in between my construction work during the summers, I’d make a buck assembling furniture from IKEA.

The child and I were done within forty minutes. She drew rainbows and clouds and unicorns on the frame while I put it together. She also didn’t shut up for one second and wrestled me into a conversation about ice cream flavors and fluffy animals. I grunted every few sentences to show her I was still there but refused to engage in the conversation.

After that, we went downstairs with Dylan’s grocery list. The child tried to convince me to buy her chocolate, but it wasn’t in the manual, so I refused. She started crying and screaming. By the time we’d returned upstairs and unloaded the groceries, I was flustered, frustrated, and done with my day. How did parents manage not to become alcoholics? That was a case for the FBI.

“Uncle Rhyrand.” The child tugged at my pants, looking up at me. “I’m hungry. Can we eat?”

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