Mancini:Doesn’t matter.
Mancini:Penny needed her. You let Poppy come. I owe you.
Me:Careful, don. I might call you up on that.
Mancini:And I might just listen before I shoot you, dog.
Redwood Plaza looked the way my grandmother said an ulcer felt.“A rot that creeps beneath my brittle skin.”The parking lot out front was pockmarked and mostly deserted, the few remaining cars clustered close to the entrances as if afraid to stray from the few working lights. I parked next to a gutted minivan with a cracked windshield and a cargo net full of yellowing plastic balls.
“What are they doing with those balls, tatko?” Brady asked.
I scrunched my nose. “Maybe they’re a gym teacher at the youth center?”
“Huh, I don’t think I want to be a teacher.”
We exited my car. The hot summer sun beat relentlessly down with one final blast before it disappeared to the west. We hurried to escape its fiery breath. The windows of the Spotted Cow wore a lacy film of grime, but the owner churned the custard by hand, making it worth it.
“Why’s that?” I held the door open for my boy.
“Can’t spank ‘em if they ain’t yours.” Brady shrugged.
I barked a laugh.
“Don’t tell mama I said ‘aint’!” His eyes grew wide, and he stopped right in the middle of the shop. “She hates when her cousins do it.”
“It’ll be our secret,” I whispered.
The round face beamed at me. Brady spun around, marching right up to the covered cases and smushed his face against the glass, the backpack with the coloring book slung around his shoulders. He balanced on the tips of his toes to see better.
A long moment of appreciation spread through me. He was a cute kid. That mop of messy brown hair never laid flat…much like mine hadn’t at his age. Instead of buzzing it short, Poppy encouraged him to wear it how he preferred.
She’s a good mother.A damn good mother.
And I probably scared her earlier today with the revelation that I wanted to put a baby in her.
What could I say? I was dreaming about her, swollen with a child, then holding it in a rocking chair that we didn’t own yet. In the delirious state between sleep and wake, as I stared at the ceiling, it’d felt so real that when I saw her in the kitchen, I blurted it out.
As if on cue, a yawn pulled from deep within.
“You need the coffee ice cream, tatko,” Brady said knowingly.
I nodded in agreement.
Brady eyed the mural painted on the shop’s cinderblock wall. A cartoonish bear in a baseball cap brandished an oversized triple-scoop cone, its smile chemically sincere. The mural was peeling at the corners, exposing layers of older mascots underneath. Generations of candy-coated failure, fossilized in latex and primer.
Teddy Bolton, the owner, came in from the back. “Ah! Mr. Mladenov! How are you?”
“Doing good, Teddy, doing good.” I gestured to Brady. “We’re here for a treat.”
The ice cream aficionado cleared his throat. “What’ll it be today, champ?”
Brady scanned the case once more.
“Salted caramel!” he responded after a long moment.
“Two scoops? A big man like you is hungry, no?”
Brady hesitated, then shook his head. “Just one. I’m not that hungry. We had a lot of soup for dinner.”
