“What?”
“Nothing. You look good, is all.” She leans in and takes a long sniff. “Smell good too.”
I’d like to think I don’t care in the slightest what I look and smell like on this particular morning, but based on how my tummy flips slightly, that would be a lie. Instead, I grumble, “Thanks.”
One of the Burlington staff has the car ready for us as we walk into the cold, and Max is already in his seat, with Birgitta next to him. It’s been a while since I had an entourage for the school drop-off, but I slip into the driver’s seat.
Max is waiting for me to catch his eye in the rearview mirror. “Ready?”
“Ready, Daddy. Music, please.”
Switching on his favorite tune—a clean version of “It Was A Good Day” by Ice Cube ...Miles’s influence,obviously—we make our way out of the BurlingtonEstate, and so begins the journey to school.
I drive in silent contemplation while Max and Miles rap along with impressive accuracy. When the song finishes, we start again, only this time without singing but with questions. Max asks when he can next ride Chester, Miles’s favorite polo pony, followed by Max listing all ponies in order of his preference, which can change daily. He then quizzes Miles on the rules of polo and the new handicap rankings, which take effect at the beginning of each January.
Ten goal is the best and rarest. There are currently only nine ten-goal players in the world, ninety-five percent of which are Argentinian. Miles was a ten but dropped following a nasty accident a couple of years ago. He’s just gone back up to nine and plans to be ten by the summer. Something Max is very supportive of.
If I could bet money on him following Miles into polo, I would.
He’s as talented as Miles was at his age.
“Thunder and Sunday are out. Have we got any polos? Can we stop?” he shouts, followed by, “Can we go to Foxleigh tonight? Can we see the baby goats?” It all comes out in one long, breathless sentence. A stream of unpunctuated words.
I find his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, buddy. No to all the questions. We don’t have time, but I’ll bring polos this afternoon so we can stop on the way home. It’ll be too late for the goats, but we’ll see them at the weekend, deal? And we’ll go to Foxleigh then too. You have a swimming lesson tonight.”
“Okay,” he replies, content with my answer because it means he’ll have something to look forward to. Plus, he’s too busy waving at Thunder. So I slow down atthe fence for him to gallop along with us, with Sunday doing his best to keep up.
As we pass through the main gates, Miles turns around to face Max. “Maxy, what are you most excited about for school this term?”
“Um . . . break time.”
Miles grins. “I used to like break time too?—”
“I have a new teacher?—”
“I’ve heard.”
The conversation continues, and the car eats up the road.
We pass fields and fields I know intimately, worked by farmers I’ve known since I was Max’s age, locals walking their dogs, cows I’ve helped birth, and horses I know by name. It’s everything I inherently love about living here, but this morning, I barely notice.
My heart pounds harder with each mile because it’s somehow only now dawned on me that this will be the first time Story has met Max. The first time she’ll have seen him, if you don’t include the photos I sent when he was born, which she never acknowledged. She never acknowledged anything I shared, and after a few years of radio silence, I finally gave up.
Aside from the interaction at the Christmas tree stand, we haven’t spoken in over six years. Since the day she left me at the fountain after I told her about Sienna being pregnant.
I wonder if she’ll see me in Max. See the boy I was when we first met.
“We’re here!” Max squeals, banging on the window as his best friend crosses the path ahead of us. “There’s Owen. OWEN.”
“Max, we need to get out of the car before we start shouting. Remember your inside voice,” reminds Birgitta for what’s likely the thousandth time as she unbuckles his car seat.
But even after they’re both unbuckled, they stay there. And I remain in my seat because I’m not ready.
“Hendricks, the child locks are on. You need to let us out,” she says eventually in that tight, Scandinavian accent, which makes everything sound like disapproval.
“Right. Sorry,” I reply with a groan, flicking the latch so she can open her door and let Max out.
“You okay?”
