Page 41 of Chosen Road

“Is everything okay?” Alex’s voice, unusually tentative, breached our painful bubble.

Gus looked up, his smile wide and sincere. “Hi, buddy. Am I ever glad to see you.”

He loped over to Alex, his hand skimming along my lower back as he went.

There was a time I took those brief touches, those reminders of his love, for granted. Now I couldn’t decide if his touch warmed me or repulsed me, but either way, I missed it.

I put my flowers in a vase. There were so many they barely fit and I laughed. Out loud. Both of my boys turned to look at me. The look of concern beneath Gus’s smile made me want to smooth things over.

“Thank you for the flowers, Gus. They are beautiful. Come and eat your dinner,” I said briskly.

“You made Dad dinner?” Alex asked with a touch of awe.

“Technically, Yiayia made him dinner.” I set Gus’s plates down at the head of the table where I would have put it before. That’s how I thought of our marriage, there was before and there was after, Jacqueline the fracture line forever dividing the two.

“Alex, you want an ice cream sandwich, levendis mou?”

Without answering, Alex grabbed an ice cream sandwich from the freezer and sat to Gus’s left, while I eased into the chair on his right.

Gus swallowed hard and I noticed his eyes were misty. “Thank you, Amber. This is wonderful. I love Yiayia’s pastitsio.”

“You should come tomorrow,” Alex offered. “Dads are allowed to come to Sunday dinner at Yiayia’s now.”

Dads are allowed to come to Sunday dinner. What was I teaching him?

Gus looked at me quickly then addressed Alex. “I’ll have to check, son, okay? I’ll let you know.”

As he spoke, he nudged the plate with his tomato salad towards me. Without thinking, I plucked an olive off the side of his plate and popped it into my mouth and then I remembered. Gus didn’t like olives but I always put them on his plate so I could eat them, even when I had my own.

My eyes flew to his as he regarded me steadily with affection.

He smiled a sad half smile and murmured, “Have at it, beautiful.”

Alex’s head swiveled back and forth between us, and my heart sank at what we were possibly setting him up for now.

I turned my attention to him. “What are you and Dad going to do, agori mou?”

Instead of answering, Alex got distracted and told Gus about rock-climbing with Vander and Jace. At the end of his monologue, he stretched his arms high over his head and cracked out a yawn while Gus looked at me, bemused. Alex continued, “Can we watch a movie, instead? The three of us?”

“I’d like nothing better, buddy,” Gus answered without looking at me.

Which is how I found myself on one side of the couch, Gus on the other, Alex happily ensconced between us, his hand tangling mindlessly in my hair just as he’d done since he was a baby. Halfway through the movie, he swung his feet up onto his dad’s lap and placed his head on mine. I brushed his hair with my fingers and watched as his eyes grew heavier until he fell asleep. The light emanating from the television flickered over his face, highlighting cheekbones that were only beginning to show themselves, the straight line of his nose which would become stronger as he matured, his smooth brow, sandy eyebrows, and long, thick, dark, eyelashes resting against his cheek.

At eleven years old, on the cusp of manhood, I wondered how much longer I would have these cuddles. Alex was one thing Gus and I did very, very right.

I glanced over at him to find him looking at us, his face stark with pain.

“Oh, Gus, what have we done to us?”

By mutual unspoken agreement, we turned back to stare unseeing at a movie neither of us cared to watch but unwilling to lose the gift of that moment.

As the credits rolled, Gus scooped Alex up and carried his limp form to his bed. Once asleep, nothing could wake him. He was like me in that regard.

I turned on a few lights, and tidied up what didn’t need tidying, while I waited for Gus to return from Alex’s room.

He approached me slowly, his face serious, hands loose at his sides. “Amber, can I come tomorrow?”

I’d been waiting for this, but I still wasn’t sure how to answer. I was still so far from knowing what to do about us and I didn’t want to give Alex false hope. “I just don’t know, Gus.”

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