Noah was dressed for the day, with his backpack full of whatever he decided was required for his “work.” He shrugged it off, set it on the ground in front of him, and started digging through it, removing random Legos and action figures until he pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“What is this?” He held it out to me. “Because it looks like the same thing Uncle Harry and Aunt Gwen have on their wall. Their driver’s license.”
I frowned at him as I took the paper. “Hm?”
My heart sank when I saw what it actually was. “Noey, where did you find this?”
“In there.”
He pointed to my bedroom, the one spot where I thought the dreaded marriage license would be safe from little curious eyes. But surely he couldn’t read the fancy script?
“I see your name, and Miss Nina’s name. Does that mean you guys have a driver’s license together, like Uncle Harry and Aunt Gwen?”
I knew my son was precocious, but I was shocked that he was drawing a parallel between this marriage license and the framed one hanging on the wall at my brother’s house. I debated how to navigate his discovery.
I contemplated outright lying about it. He was six and couldn’t read what the license actually said. But doing that could come back to bite me in the ass. Besides, Noah had gone through so much, losing his mother. I finally felt like we were building something together, and I didn’t want to betray his trust.
So I had to give him a version of the truth.
“Bud, this is a marriage license, not a driver’s license.”
His eyes went wide, and he broke into a giant grin. “YoumarriedMiss Nina? All of my cruiser friends are going to besojealous when I tell them.”
Alarm bells. That absolutely couldnothappen. I had to find a way to rectify this so that we could go through with our plan to get the marriage annulled on the downlow. But at the same time, I loathed telling Noah that he needed to lie or hide it from everyone. There was no way I wanted my son to think that keeping secrets for grown-ups was a good idea.
I grasped his shoulders gently and waited for him to look at my face.
“Miss Nina and my marriage license isn’t like Uncle Harry and Aunt Gwen’s.”
He blinked at me, curious and confused. “It’s not?”
“No.” I hedged, racking my brain for an explanation. “It’s a special kind of practice marriage…to make sure that we all like it before making it official.”
“Oh. Like Ariel.” His smile dimmed a little as he processed that both his kitten and nanny could disappear from his life. “But why wouldn’t we like it?”
Pull up a chair, son, and let me tell you about all of the ways Nina Reyes is wrong for me.
“It’s a big change, Noey. We need time to adjust and make sure that it’s going to work out for all of us, including you.”
He went quiet and looked down at the kitten. “What happens if it goes bad?”
My heart pinched at his worst-case scenario assumption.
I ran my hand over the top of his head. “Then we’ll have a conversation and agree to just be good friends.”
“But if it goes good, will you keep your driver’s license?”
“Marriage license,” I corrected. “And, yeah, if we all agreed, I suppose we would.”
“Yay!” He jumped up and down, clapping. I felt that pinch in my chest again. I wished things were that simple. “I like Miss Nina. She’s fun.”
“Oh yeah? What do you like about her?” A part of me was desperate to shift the subject away from Nina and ourmarriage, but the question was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
His eyes lit up, just like they always used to when he got excited about something. I missed those happy, babbling lectures he used to give about his favorite toy, his favorite TV show, his favorite cartoon character. If he was willing to wax on about Nina, I was more than willing to listen. He still had grumpy days,when he’d shut down and only offer single-word answers, and that made moments like this all the more precious.
“Well, Miss Nina taught me how to take care of Ariel!” Noah reached down to pick up the kitten, who turned to stretchy taffy in his little hands. He cradled her to his chest and the kitten started purring. “And she’s a good draw-er. She lets me use the fancy markers, because she says I’m extra careful. She’s silly, too! She does funny dances with us.”
I smiled. That tracked.
