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Chapter Thirty-Three / 2013


Abbey

:)

Colon, parenthesis. Two itty bitty parts of the English language's punctuation... so often overlooked or even misused by most of the population... so much the forefront thought in my brain. I sat on the floor most of the day coloring with Matty in the living room, obsessing sliently with the thought of what Nick had meant with the smiley face he'd sent me. Were we seriously together? Why did this feel like high school and he'd checked the "yes" box on a note I'd passed him during study hall?

"I wanna get Mr. Nick a present," Matty announced after lunch. He still had a little peanut butter and jelly stuck to his cheek.

"You do?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered. "Something really great. Like a chia pet or something."

I stared at Matty, put down my crayon. "A chia pet?"

"Yeah. They're pretty great."

"I'm sure we can think of something even greater to get Nick," I said. Because really -- a chia pet?

Matty shrugged. "Maybe. But Chia Pets would be pretty hard to beat."

"I'm pretty sure if we think really hard we'll be able to, though," I replied, smirking to myself. Matty had never had a Chia Pet, so I wasn't entirely positive where he'd gotten the idea from. But he went back to coloring, his little tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth until almost one, when there was a knock at our door.

"Hey," Nick said, grinning as he came in the door. "How was y'alls mornin'?"

"I colored you a picture," Matty said. He went back to the coffee table and grabbed a picture of Nacho that he'd drawn and waved it at Nick. "Here you go."

Nick looked it over, "Wow, thanks," he said. "That's a really good picture." I could tell the way he was looking at it that he wasn't entirely positive what it was.

"Matty did a great job coloring Nacho, didn't he?" I asked.

Nick looked up, and I could see the relief and thankfulness in his eyes. "Oh yes," he said, "Nacho never looked better, lil buddy." He grinned. "I'm gonna put this in my wallet and keep it with me all the time." He pulled out his wallet, folded the picture, and slid it in. Matty looked enthralled. Nick looked at me, "I'm here to bring my super artistic lil buddy out for a super, super secret boy's mission."

I raised one eyebrow.

Nick grinned. "I'd tell ya where to but, like I said, it's super, super secret." He mouthed the word mall and I smirked.

"Well then," I said to Matty, "I guess you better go get dressed, huh? You don't wanna do your super secret man mission in your PJS."

"Be right back!" Matty said and he walked down the hall to his room.

I turned to Nick as Matty's bedroom door shut behind him. "So... a smiley face," I said.

Nick's smiled a little smile, his eyes cast away from mine, "Yeah. A smiley face."

"So... yes, then?" I asked, moving over to him.

He looked up as I came close, our eyes meeting. "Yeah," he said quietly.

I was standing so close now, our bodies touched. I stared into his eyes. I was just about to kiss him when Matty's door opened again and he rushed back to the living room. I jumped away from Nick like shrapnel just as Matty rounded the corner. He looked from Nick to me and back again a couple times. "What'cha doin?" he asked.

"Super, super secret grown-up stuff," Nick answered. He looked Matty over. "Okay, so. Are you ready then?"

"I'm ready!" Matty said.

Nick smiled, "Aiight, then, let's go."

Matty led the way to the door. Nick hovered as Matty headed down the steps to the lot. He glanced back at me. "I, uh, guess we'll have to, you know, make this official later?"

"Sounds fun," I replied.

"Great," Nick answered, eyes twinkling.

"Thats it," I added, laughing.

Nick winked, and pulled the door shut behind him.




Nick

Matty grasped my hand as we walked through the crowded Opry Mills Mall. It was nearly as bad as the mall I'd brought Abbey to on Black Friday. People were side stepping and rushing every which way, so I kept his hand firmly in mine, not wanting to lose him among the mass of people that filled the halls. Christmas music blasted at an uncomfortably loud volume overhead, making it all feel more frenzied than if there'd been silence from the intercom.

I glanced down at Matty. He was gripping a directory map from the doorway in his fist, looking it over carefully. "Where to?" I asked him.

He shrugged.

"What are we gettin' for your mom?" I asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "I was thinkin' maybe a crown. Like a tiara."

I paused my walk to look down at him. "What?"

"She could be a princess."

"What's she gonna do with a tiara?" I asked.

"If she's princess, wear it around and stuff."

We walked a little ways down the hall. I wasn't sure what to say to him about the tiara idea. I mean it was terrible but the thought behind it was sweet and what do you say to a kid with a sweet idea but an impractical gift? I wasn't sure. It occurred to me that I was probably a pretty shitty dad. I didn't know how to say stuff.

"Well... what if we hold up on the tiara 'til she becomes a princess then?" I suggested.

"Okay. I was thinking maybe a build-a-bear, too," he said.

"Maybe," I said. "Let's look around and see what we can find, okay?"

We dodged and ducked through the crowd, and I made periodic suggestions to Matty for Christmas gift ideas, but he didn't like any of them. We were maybe a quarter of the way through the mall from the door we'd gone in from when Matty said, "I'm hot."

I looked down at him. It was pretty hot in the mall. You could feel the pressure from all the body heat kinda building up and pushing against you. Plus Matty was wearing a jacket. I directed him to a little gap of space behind a Dead Sea Minerals kiosk and I helped him get the jacket off. I tossed it over my arm. Thinking we were all set, I started to stand up, but Matty ripped off his sweater, too. Underneath he had on a little t-shirt with the Despicable Me minions on it. He handed me the sweater and I tossed it over my arm, too. "Better?" I asked.

Matty nodded.

We started on again through the mall, me calling out store names and suggestions. We'd gone probably another tenth of the way around when Matty stopped walking. We were outside of Johnny Rockets, where there's a row of massaging chairs. "Can we stop a second?" he asked and he tugged his hand away to go over to the massaging chair closest to us. He crawled up on it, his face all crumbled in concern.

"Hey buddy, you okay?" I asked and I knelt down in front of him.

He closed his eyes.

"Matty?"

It sudenly occurred to me that I was with a very sick kid in a mall, alone, with no idea how to handle it when something went wrong. How could I possibly immature enough to have not asked Abbey for his doctors' phone numbers? I put my hands on his knees. His skin was warm, his cheeks flushed.
He opened his eyes and stared right into mine.

"I don't... feel... good, Mr. Nick," he mumbled.

"We gotta get you outta here," I said, and I started to stand up, but then Matty grabbed my hand from leaving his knee and squeezed tight, his eyes wincing shut. His little fingernails poked my skin. His other hand clutched his chest. I knew this look. I knew it because I'd seen Brian do it and it made my own heart stop. "Someone help!" I shouted, "I need a doctor!"

The bustling holiday shoppers moved on. Most of them completely unaware of the drama happening amongst them. Only a couple slowed a little to look our way, nobody came to help.

"Matty," I said, my voice urgent. "Matty." I grabbed his wrist and looked at his little monitor thing. His blood pressure was through the roof.

"Somebody!" I yelled, "Please! My son needs help!" I dropped his wrist and started fishing in my pocket for my cell phone. "It's gonna be okay Matty, it's gonna be okay," I mumbled again and again. People were starting to take notice. Even as I struggled to get my phone out I noticed there was somebody calling 911. Matty's eyes slid open and he stared at me, a little unfocused. "It's gonna be okay," I said again because I didn't know what else to say.

And suddenly there was a man kneeling beside me, "I'm a doctor," he said.

As the guy started talking, taking Matty down from the chair and laying him flat on the carpet, Matty's eyes never once moved from me.