My knuckles pop as I squeeze the steering wheel, but I give both boys a big smile. “Just a friend from work.”
A friend. Fuck. Why was he calling? And why did I think playing his voicemail for my children was a good idea?
Of course, he didn’t say anything that could be misconstrued. He might even have been calling for some perfectly professional reason, but seeing as how I’ve barely had a birds-and-bees talk with my kids, I’m sure as hell not introducing the idea of Brady and random office hookups to them.
We have a few tense minutes as we finally get on the highway, where Jacob suddenly announces he has to pee and absolutely can’t wait, and then I have to navigate my way over eight lanes of traffic to the next off ramp and find us a McDonald’s where I can rush both boys inside. Predictably, this detour leads to pleas for french fries and McNuggets that I would normally say no to, especially since it’s only ten o’clock in the morning, but I’ve really pushed that this is a special bonus weekend with endless fun, so it’s McNuggets and fries for everyone, followed by another trip to the bathroom, before we get on our way again.
And that’s how our morning goes. We park a million miles from the front gate, because we’re later than I wanted to be, and I join the legions of parents trying to cajole their kids into putting more sunscreen on as we make our way inside. But, finally, we’re there, at the zoo like I promised. The sun may try to bake us into the concrete, but we’re going to have a good time.
Jacob wants to see the cheetahs. Karter wants to see the raccoons.
“Buddy,” I laugh. “We have raccoons at home. And you have Henry. You don’t have to come to the zoo to see them.”
He looks up at me with curious eyes. “You have raccoons at the apartment?”
My smile freezes. When I said ‘at home,’ I meant the house in Markham. God only knows Toronto’s raccoon army is ubiquitous and cunning enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to find one on my nineteenth story balcony, but I hadn’t been picturing that image as I’d spoken.
“Just Henry,” I say slowly. “I meant at your house. With Papa.”
Their house. This separateness. It’s a loss of identity, and here I am, trying to buy back time with them using fast food and orangutans.
We’re still full of McDonald’s, but we stop for lunch around one, finding a picnic bench in the shade. I packed a cooler of carrot sticks and cheese and crackers, which the boys inhale between busy gulps on juice boxes. They chatter about the animals they’ve seen so far. Karter is still on the hunt for his raccoon, eyes roaming around us continuously in case one could pop out of a garbage can at any minute.
It’s only after we’ve packed up lunch and headed to the zoo’s splash pad to cool off for a little while that I remember Brady’s voicemail. The boys are chasing each other around a fountain shaped like a killer whale, laughing and kicking up water. Keeping one eye on them, I fish my phone out and play the voicemail.
“Hey. It’s... it’s Brady. I guess you probably know that.” For a minute he seems uncertain, and the sound of it is so at odds with the image of the man standing over me, telling me I can’t come until he does, that I wonder if I made the whole memory up, but then he coughs to clear his throat, and his voice deepens. “I was... I was wondering what you’re up to tonight. If... if you wanted to get together. Um. Yeah. You have the number. Call me.”
The longer he speaks, the more trouble I have breathing. Thank God I’ve got an Avengers towel in my lap, because every word drains blood from the rest of my body and sends it south where my dick perks up eagerly.
Except the voicemail is eighteen hours old, and I’m sitting at a splash pad in the middle of a damn zoo where I’m supposed to be watching my children.
As if on cue, Jacob runs up to me. He’s soaked, his hair plastered to his head, eyelashes making spikey triangles.
“Having fun?” I say.
“My stomach hurts.”
“How much—” But before I can even get the whole question out, his face twists, and I wind up with a lap full of nugget- and carrot-stick-scented vomit.
Our zoo trip is effectively over. The drive back into the city is subdued, and I’m disappointed that our day was cut short. For a second, I consider going north instead of west and taking them back to Markham. Dominic will be beside himself when he finds out Jacob’s sick, but inevitably the story about the trip to McDonald’s will come out, and I’ll get a lecture about not feeding the boys crap.
I can’t get the smell of puke out of my nostrils. I don’t need Dominic’s nagging on top of that. If he had his way, they’d live on macrobiotic yams and free-range protein powder.
And it does seem to only be an unfortunate combination of processed chicken, fruit punch, too much sun, and tender seven-year-old stomachs, because we get back incident- and vomit-free. Jacob’s still feeling pretty low, though, so I get the boys installed on the couch and put on some of the animatedClone Warsseries to let them chill.
“I’m just going to call Papa and let him know what happened,” I say. Now that everything is under control, I can call without fear of screaming.
Except Karter says, “You can’t!” before I even turn.
I pause. Karter’s not one to object to very many things, especially something as innocuous as a phone call. “Why not?”
The boys give each other nervous looks.
“He’s not home,” Karter says.
“Did he go to Aunt Miranda’s?”
“No.” Karter looks really uncomfortable now, and even Jacob sits up.
