Page 29 of Mornings By the Linden Tree
“Perhaps someday. I don’t think they have elephants anymore.”
“Oh, how very tragic.” She sighed, then lapsed back into play. Dr. Bajaj and I both snickered at her dramatic flair.
I took a deep breath and looked down at the man sitting with his socks on display. “I never meant to be short with you about my return to work. Today was…stressful in ways I’m not wholly familiar with, and so I require some time to parcel things out to deal with them.”
“I understand. When you left the law office after your sister passed, you were a wholly different man than you are now. So in theory, a stranger walked into your old life and is now confused at how to proceed as he did before Valeria came to live with you.”
“I…” I stared at him as if he had just sprouted antennas. “Well, yes, that is a good description of how I’m feeling. This new Wesley feels inept in a world that he fully commanded just a few months ago. Now I feel as if I’m too focused on what is taking place at home. My reasonings are being tested as is mypatience with clients who, beforehand, I merely tolerated. Now I’m questioning how we should handle a difficult case, which is something that I rarely do.”
“You never question yourself?”
“No,” I replied with candor. “Once my mind is set on a course of action, there is no deviation.” I paused for a second. “Or there never used to be. Now I seem to bounce about like a ball over simple decisions over a child. It is incredibly vexing.”
“Hmm, I see. That does coincide with what I see in our sessions. Tell me something. If you had to pick a Wesley to carry forward with from this day onward, which Wesley would you choose?”
There I sat like a toad on a log with no real answer because I just wasn’t sure. “I do not know,” I finally whispered so as not to be heard by my ward. She needed me to be the solid thing in her life now, not wishy-washy weak. “I am finding out that parenting changes you in ways you never thought possible.”
He smiled serenely. As if he had just found a golden idol in a lost cave ala Indiana Jones.
“That is one of the greatest truths to ever be truthed.” We had a moment of understanding. “So, care to remove your shoes and join us on the floor?”
And there went the moment.
Chapter Twelve
My restraint pertaining to Lennon snapped on Friday afternoon. And when I say snapped, I mean it splintered like a tree in a tornado and not like an old rubber band.
I’d come home after lunch with Rissa in my office, a cold egg salad sandwich from the deli on the corner, a bag of sea salt chips, and a large cup of coffee, to find my nanny and my niece lying on chaises in my back yard in barnyard animal costumes—Valeria was a pink bunny and Lennon was a rooster and no I did not ask—pointing at clouds floating by. I placed my satchel on the coffee table, then eased the sliding glass door open. The smell of fresh lemon wax floated out of the house to be lifted skyward. Mrs. Polkowski had dusted today. While I had previously enjoyed the smell of lemon, I was now mad for the scent of lime. Especially when it wafted off the flesh of the man who was dressed as a giant cock.
“That one looks like a cow!” Valeria shouted. “Cow. Cow starts with C.”
“Very good.” Lennon swatted at his silly yellow beak, then waved a feathered arm at the sky. “And that one looks like an iguana. Iguana starts with I.”
I leaned on the frame of the slider, contented to simply listen to the two of them for the moment, a smile playing on my lips.
“What’s an ee-gone-ah?” Valeria asked. How either of them could be comfortable on such a warm late June day inside those stuffy jumpsuits was beyond me. I was close to perspiring just standing here.
“An iguana is a lizard that lives south of here like in Mexico and Central and South America. They are green, with big googly eyes and a long tongue that they shoot out super-fast to catch bugs.” Lennon was splayed out on the chaise, his zipped-up rooster outfit sagging over his lean frame.
“Mama told me that she was from Mexico,” Valeria commented as her tiny feet sailed into the air. Tiny bare feet that swayed back and forth like seaweed. “I think Mama says me too was from Mexico people.”
“If your mother was Mexican, then yes, I would imagine you would also be part Mexican. Hey!” He sat up so fast his beak fell down to cover his face. He pushed it back off his sweaty head. “How would you like to watch a movie about a Mexican boy? Oh! Or one about a girl from Colombia?”
“Where ?Lumbia?” the pink bunny asked.
“It’s a South American country. One movie is calledCoco, and that’s about a Mexican boy, and the other is calledEncantoabout a Colombian girl. Both are really good.”
“Coco and Mexico!” Valeria shouted, leapt to her bare feet, and spun around. Her dark eyes went round when she saw me lounging in the doorway. “Uncle Wes is home!”
She ran at me full speed. I swept her into the air, kissed her cheeks, and hugged her close.
Lennon rose from the chaise, his cheeks red as apples. I couldn’t tell if that blush was from the heat or from being caught lazing around in a chicken suit. Didn’t matter. That rosy color on his face did all kinds of things to my flimsy control. I truly needed to kiss the man again.
“I thought you were going to try to stay a few hours extra to make up for missing next Monday,” Lennon questioned and plucked at his costume. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
I bit back the urge to say something about not minding finding a big cock on my chaise but gave him a feeble smile instead. He tugged at the zipper of his suit awkwardly.
“I has to pee,” Valeria said as she wiggled from my arms. I placed her on the ground, and she raced off.
