“The Swamp!” he announced, pointing at the building with its triangular rooftop and triple-arched entryway. “We made it.”
Heading into the building, we were immediately hit with a fug of warm, humid air, and the sound of running water. There were cypress trees and ferns and palms, the light filtered as if we really were walking through a swamp. It was a whole ecosystem. Max loved it.
After that initial walk through the swamp building, we rode the carousel and went into the butterfly enclosure, per Anja’s request. The day seemed to get easier, with Max getting less shy with each new experience, excited to talk to me about every new animal we saw. We took a break to have a pizza lunch, followed by Dippin’ Dots—Max insisted, despite the cool weather, telling Anja, “It’s not for me, it’s for my friend. We can share!”—and my chest felt tight as I realized Max’s ‘friend’ was me.
As we strolled around the Reptiles and Birds building, taking in the Komodo dragons, iguanas, and lizards, I couldn’t help feeling proud of the kid Max had turned out to be. Anja deserved a lot of credit for raising him so well.
Despite everything, I felt myself softening toward her. A little. Even though I didn’t agree with what she had done and why she had chosen to keep her location and Max a secret from me for all these years, I could understand—given my involvement with KZM—why she had. I could also imagine that even with my father’s money and support, it hadn’t been easy to raise Max on her own.
That didn’t mean anything was going to happen between the two of us, though.
“Re-tic-u-lated python,” Max read out loud. “It’s the world’s longest snake. Cool!”
I looked into the enclosure alongside him and smiled. “That is pretty cool. Why do you think he’s got that pattern on him?”
“It’s for camouflage,” he said. “A lot of animals have it. It’s like a disguise.”
Anja and I watched proudly as Max went from one tank to the next, reading the plaques next to the enclosures to us. Occasionally I’d help him spot scaly animals that were hiding out in corners or under rocks, away from prying eyes. He was having a blast.
Max was so sweet, so genuinely good, and so curious about everything around him. Nothing like me as a kid. Losing my mom when I was six had made me turn inward, and I’d been fairly closed-off emotionally, and resistant to authority figures. I was so glad Max wasn’t like that. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more he reminded me of Tori. He had the same bright intelligence, inquisitive nature, and kind heart.
Then again, everything reminded me of Tori. No matter what I did or where I was, my thoughts always seemed to return to her.
Not for the first time that day, I wished she was here with us. That she was the woman at my side. She’d know exactly what to say, how to act around a kid like Max. In fact, she’d probably be great at it. I checked my phone again, hoping for a response, hoping for any indication that she had gotten my message. Nothing.
“Hey, buddy—you wanna go see the Big Cats?” Max was saying, interrupting my thoughts. He held up the map, now scrunched and limp in his fist, and pointed. “There’s lions.”
He was calling me his buddy. “Sure,” I said.
“Let’s go!” he exclaimed, taking my hand and dragging me along.
I looked back at Anja and she just shrugged and smiled, trailing us in her heels. It was obvious by the way she interacted with Max that she loved him. That she’d do anything for him.
“You two go ahead,” she said. “I’ll catch up.”
As we left the reptiles and birds behind, I realized that Anja had been especially quiet all day, even deferring to me if Max asked her a question about the exhibits. She was letting me get to know him, one-on-one. I appreciated that.
Walking hand-in-hand with my kid, it was hard not to dwell on all the lost time. His entire life, I’d been a stranger to him—hell, I still was—when I could have been there for him. Could have been his father. A real father.
My heart twisted. I’d never thought much about being a parent or having a family, but spending the day with Max was forcing me to think about what I wanted. And that was to have a solid relationship with my son—and any future kids I might have. But what did Tori want?
“Looks like you found the lions,” I told Max as we stopped in front of the enclosure.
A pride of females lounged, some blinking in our direction, others stretched out for a nap. The male was further off, perched on a rock.
“In the wild,” I said, “the females do all the hunting. They’re fierce.”
“My mom’s like that too,” Max said seriously.
Anja came up behind us then, and Max stretched out his free hand to grab hers. With our kid in the middle, holding onto both of us, and the content smiles on all our faces, we probably looked like the picture of a happy, perfect family to anyone who was walking by. No one would guess that this was my first formal outing with my child, that he still didn’t know I was his father, and that his mother had been hiding from me for almost the last decade.
Still, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. I knew the true score.
I glanced down at Max. “You want to check out the tigers?”
“Yeah!”
The rapid click of a camera sounded from my right and my head snapped instantly in that direction. A young man was casually turning away, tucking something into the black bag at his hip. A camera? It had sounded like he was taking pictures, but this was a zoo and there were plenty of people taking photos all around us with their phones or digital cameras.
