We talked for a long time, about an hour and a half. I found myself explaining to Sophia some things that most of my close friends haven't heard from me, about how I met Julia, and how I felt when Julia died, and how that's affected my relationship to Michael.
For some reason, we'd connected. It was as if God had sent us then and there for us to meet and talk.
Finally Julia began to cry.
"Oh, it's time to eat." Sophia said.
"Go right ahead." I encouraged, but then Sophia looked at me strangely.
"I breast-feed her." Sophia said with a grin.
I made a face. "Okay, so I guess that's my queue to leave. It was nice talking to you."
"Yeah, maybe we should meet and talk again..."
"Okay, here's my phone number." I said, grabbing a kleenex from my pocket and scribbling the number. "Hope you can read it."
Sophia laughed. "I hope so, too."
Then we parted ways, I went towards the swings were the kids were entertaining themselves, and Sophia walked down a street. She looked so put together, calmly pushing the carriage and holding the golden retriever firmly in her hand. She was so confident, so sophisticated. Those, to me, seemed very attractive traits. And she seemed like a good mother.
Stop it! I told myself. What about Julia?
I stopped thinking about Sophia as an attractive woman and returned to thinking of her as a new friend.
"Jamie, Mike, it's time to go home."
"Oh, Daddy, just when we were having the most fun!" Jamie complained, but she got off at once. Mike followed suit.
"C'mon, once you get home you can play with Joshua."
Jamie smiled at the prospect. Her face was beautiful. My children are all beautiful.
We half skipped home, holding hands. It probably looked ridiculous, but it was fun.
Then we entered the house noisily, though I was trying to shush Jamie and Mike.
"You stay down here, Josh will be down in a minute." I instructed Jamie and Michael.
They sat down by the couch and picked up a few toy cars as I made my way upstairs.
I knocked softly on Josh's door, but no response. I entered, making as little noise as I could. Then I figured out that it was ridiculous, because I was about to wake him up, anyway.
The sight that greeted my eyes was this: curled up in a ball, Josh was only wearing boxers and socks. The blankets was covering roughly half his body, the right half. He was looking pale but he was sweating. His thin hair was messed up.
To sum up, he did not look that good. I debated whether to wake him. After all, he needed his sleep.
But I decided that I would wake him up. He'd specifically asked for me to do it, and if he wasn't feeling that well, he could just return to sleep.
"Josh, wake up." I said.
It didn't work.
"Josh!" I said, about one decibel higher than before.
Joshua stirred. "What..." he mumbled. He looked cute, in a vulnerable sort of way.
"It's time to get up, two hours have gone by."
"It feels like I just fell asleep." Josh said, still not opening his eyes.
"That happens." I agreed. "Get up." I softly said.
"Okay." He opened his eyes. They looked unusually sharp but they were still beautiful, as always.
He got up, groaning as he did so, and stretched. "You can go now, you know." Josh said. "I'll be out in a minute."
I left, as he asked, but the lingering sadness was there that my fourteen year old son needs naps to get through the day. I'd known this for months, but I still couldn't get used to it. Parents can't really get used to these things.
Author's Chapter Notes:
The music that goes with this chapter: PM's love theme, by Craig Armstrong. Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven.
