5
IZZY
Mornings in my apartment are never graceful.
They are not the kind of morning you see in cereal commercials, where the parent smiles lovingly over a healthy breakfast while the child eats fruit in color-coordinated pajamas. Mornings in my apartment means me standing in yesterday’s leggings, trying to butter toast one-handed while packing Noah’s school and afternoon daycare bags with the other and reminding him for the third time that socks are not optional in civilized society.
Noah, for the record, disagrees.
“Mom,” he says, dragging out the word in the long-suffering tone of a tiny man who has already endured too much in this life, “they itch.”
“They are socks,” I say. “Their whole thing is being on feet. They are not supposed to feel like clouds kissed by angels.”
He squints at me from his chair at the table. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“That’s because I haven’t had enough coffee yet.”
He accepts this. Noah accepts a lot of things from me that no adult ever would. One of the many perks of being six.
Or almost seven, as he reminds me roughly every two days.
The kitchen smells like toast, cheap coffee, and the eggs I somehow managed not to burn, which honestly feels like a personal triumph. Noah is working his way through breakfast with that serious little frown he gets when he is thinking hard about something.
He gets that from his father, too. The birthmark and the seriousness and the dark hair and dark eyes and straight features that will one day blossom into a GQ-worthy face.
I try not to think that too often. How much Noah resembles his father. But it’s impossible. He’s the spitting image in so many ways.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
He pokes a piece of egg with his fork and says, as if reading my mind, “Can you tell me about my dad now?”
I close my eyes for half a second.
Of course.
We have had this conversation before. Several times, in fact, just in different forms. Sometimes, it is a passing question. Sometimes, it is more pointed. Other times, it comes out of nowhere, usually when I am least emotionally equipped to handle it, which is impressive considering I am almost never emotionally equipped to handle it.
I set my coffee down carefully and look at him.
“Noah,” I say gently, “we’ve had this talk before. I’ll tell you when you’re ready.”
His mouth tightens immediately. “But when am I gonna be ready?”
“When I say so.”
He drops his fork onto the plate with all the wounded drama his little body can produce.
“That’s not fair.”
“I know it doesn’t feel fair.”
“Itisn’t.”
He’s getting louder now, and I can see where this is going. I also know better than to cut him off too early. There is no point. Once Noah has decided he is going to have feelings about something, those feelings will happen with or without my cooperation.
“I’m the only one,” he bursts out.
