“I do!” The shrillness of his words is muffled partially by the referee’s whistle. Dominic drops his voice again. “And you should too.”
“What the fuck for?”
I’m so caught up in mounting anger, I don’t hear the second whistle blow to call a break or even notice the boys running to us until I have fifty-five pounds of squirming seven-year-old in my lap.
“Daddy!” Jacob says. “You came!”
I squeeze him hard, growling playfully. “Of course I came. It’s a big game.”
“It is?” he says. “Why?”
“I just mean—” I glance over at Dominic, who is helping Karter fix his shin guards and very pointedly not looking at me. “Every game is important. You have to try your best, every time, right?”
He nods at me seriously before squirming down. “Did you see me? I almost scored!” He then proceeds to reenact his entire glorious—as he tells it—cross-field sprinting, weaving and dodging, nearly taking the ball to victory before he was foiled at the last minute by a pesky goalie.
“I did see that,” I say with a big smile. “You’re both doing great out there. You and your brother. I’m so glad I get to see it.”
The whistle blows, calling them back onto the field, and Karter and Jacob hurry to rejoin their team. When they’re gone, they leave a frosty silence, despite the warm summer breeze that swirls across the park.
“Look,” I finally say. “Brady is an adult. He has his own place, runs his own business. We’re just starting to get serious. We’ve hardly talked about the boys at all—”
“So you’re playing house in the city? Humping like rabbits and pretending we don’t exist.”
“Jesus Christ, Dominic,” I scrub my hands over my face. I’ll have to leave if he keeps going and I don’t want to disappoint my sons. Not that getting into a screaming match at a soccer game is a great move either. “You didn’t want to be married to me anymore. That’s your prerogative, and I have moved on. Clearly you have too. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m coming to the soccer games, and I’m taking the boys on the planned weekends. What I do in my own time is personal and—”
“Jacob has a learning disorder.”
What the fuck? “Excuse me?” I grind out.
“He’s been having trouble at school and Karim says—”
“So you’re pissed off that I’m dating someone younger, and meanwhile your own boyfriend is suddenly an expert on how my child’s brain works?”
“Ourchild,” Dominic says. “But he is their doctor.”
“He’s a pediatrician. His specialty is vaccines and ear infections.”
But Dominic keeps talking like I haven’t spoken. “Well, he was there. And if you’d ever bothered to listen, I would have told you too.” His words make something sick and clammy twist in my stomach. What I remember about the end of the marriage was Dominic telling me how hard it was forhim, and I finally gave up and let him say it was over, because nothing I did made him happy. I’ve made my peace with the fact we weren’t good for each other. But what if I wasn’t there for the boys?
As if to prove my point, Dominic says, “Of course listening would have involved you being home and not glued to your laptop twenty-four seven. It would have involved coming to doctors’ visits and teacher conferences and paying attention instead of checking your email every five minutes. It’s a goddamn film festival, Nash, not brain surgery.”
We’ve had that argument so many times. He never understood why it was so important to me. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
“What do you think is wrong with Jacob?” I say, trying to find level ground again.
Dominic lets out a long breath. “Probably ADHD. Some kind of language disorder.”
“Language disorder? He talks fine.”
“Not like that. He can’t read, Nash.”
“He can read,” I say, but my mind is already turning. They’re only seven. We’re just getting into the sort of homework that needs parental assistance and supervision. And it’s the summer. I can barely remember what they were working on in school last year.
Dominic looks sad. “Not well. He’s still sounding out words like ‘cat’ and ‘ball.’ He can write his own name and Karter’s, but his spelling on anything else is beyond awful. I tried to help him with it this year, and it just ended in tears and screaming matches. Half the time I don’t even know what letter he’s writing, much less what word he’s trying to spell. I don’t think he can do it.”
“It doesn’t have to be all on you. We’ll get him tutors. We’ll—” Brady’s got a client. He’s told me about him. Something about after-school tutoring. I’ll have him introduce us. “He’s not—” I shake my head, watching as my boy, my smart, funny boy who negotiates like a champ, chases after the other kids, a big smile on his face.
“He’s great,” Dominic says. “But he’s going to need a lot of work to thrive. A lot of time.” He throws a glance my way on the last word. “And you’re with someone who can’t even get off the phone to have dinner with you.”
