Page 39 of Mom-Com
“Did you hear me, Dad?” Stein patiently asked me. He knew how I was when I was reading, writing, or thinking. I never heard someone unless they shouted my name multiple times, too caught up in my head to be aware of my surroundings.
I blinked. “I’m sorry. What’s that, son?”
“I asked you what was wrong. You’re over here, like, grunting.” He giggled.
I didn’t blame him. My love life, and my reaction to it, was quite pathetic. One day I hoped to look back on all this and giggle too. Like, years from now. Maybe when I was in the old folks’ home and half senile anyway.
“You really want to know?” I lifted an eyebrow, daring him.
He scooted closer, face earnest. “Dad, is this about Clark’s mom?”
Damn these kids and their perception. They always knew what was going on, except for when it was time to do chores and they played dumb. I covered my surprise as much as I could.
“Well, it’s mostly about that experiment I told you about when we first moved here.”
“The one about true love?”
“Yep, that’s the one. Remember how I was going to run an experiment to prove that romantic love doesn’t exist?”
Stein nodded, still looking more serious than an eight-year-old should. “Yeah, I remember. Did you finish the experiment?”
I set my journal aside and shifted so I faced him. This conversation required my full attention. “I sure did. I borrowed some tactics from a magazine article and unleashed them on Lily-Marie. My hypothesis claimed she wouldn’t be affected. Love wouldn’t suddenly appear out of thin air, thus proving me right.”
I paused, struggling for how to describe what actually happened.
“And? Did you get your hyp-thus correct?”
Sigh. “Nope, not even a little bit.”
Stein gasped. “Lily-Marie is in love with you?”
I chuckled ruefully. “Nope, not even a little bit.” Stein’s eyebrows drew into a frown. “Ifell in love withher.”
Stein’s face cleared and he hopped off the couch to stand in front of me. “That’s great, Dad!”
I couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. His support was heart-melting, even if misplaced. “Well, not really. She’s not in love with me, so that means I’m kinda frustrated and miserable right now.”
Stein shook his head. “Nah, you’re just focusing on the wrong things right now, Dad, and that’s making you miserable.”
“What do you mean?”
“First of all, you discovered that romantic love exists and that’s fantastic news, don’t you think? And second of all, you just gotta make your grand gesture and Lily-Marie will love you too. That’s how they always do it in the movies.” He shrugged, like everything was figured out.
“My grand gesture, huh?” I scrubbed a hand through my hair. Didn’t sound any worse than what I was currently thinking about, which focused primarily on giving up. “What exactly is a grand gesture?”
“Haven’t you been watching all the movies we see? The guy always makes a big plan to show the woman how much he loves her. Like inSleeping Beauty, he kissed her to wake her up. InMoana, he sails across the earth to help her. In aDog’s Purpose, he travels through several lifetimes, just to bring two people in love together. A grand gesture.”
Hope flares, a tiny flame about to sputter out at the slightest gust of wind. Or maybe ready to burst into a huge wall of flame with the slightest bit of encouragement from an insightful boy.
“A grand gesture,” I repeated myself, the idea taking root, building and growing into something beautiful and earnest and raw. Declaring I loved Lily-Marie was only the first step to sharing myself with her, I realized. The real declaration of love wasn’t in the words, but in the listening, in the doing. I needed to listen to her, fully understand what she needed in a partner, and then be that partner. Not because I needed her. But because she needed me. Because I wanted to be the man she deserved.
I grabbed my pen and opened the journal again, turning to a fresh page and leaning forward, my forehead almost touching Stein’s.
“Let’s get to brainstorming, son.”
17
Lily-Marie
