Saturday, June 16, 2008. 12 pm.
“Come on, Lucas, we’ll be late!”
I hear the patter of sneakers running along the floor upstairs and place my hands on my hips, a lunch bag hanging from the crook of my arm. Everything else we’d need was already loaded into the car, so all I was missing was the kid.
The one in question comes barreling down the stairs and halts in front of me, panting. “I almost forgot Ridley,” he raises the bear to my eye level and I smile. Six years and that bear still has both its eyes.
“Can’t leave him, now can we?” I grin. “Go on, get in the car. I’ll be there in a minute.” I swat him lightly on the bottom to get him moving.
He hurries past me and out the front door chanting childishly, ‘We’re going to the zoo, we’re going to the zoo’ just before the passenger side door clicks shut.
I readjust the bag on my arm and the wide brimmed sun hat covering my brown hair when the voice of Isabel the housekeeper catches me and I turn. “What’s up, Isabel?”
“The lady says you are to be home by 8 o’clock at the latest tonight, Miss Ravenwood.” she reports as she smoothes out her long blond hair.
“Not a problem. We’ll be back before then. See ya.” I wave good-bye and she closes the door behind me as I walk down to the car with the waiting child inside. He’s got the bear up on the dashboard and manipulating its arms so it looks like Ridley is driving. A typical kid thing to do when bored, and he tends to get bored easily.
I noticed quickly how intelligent he was. No, not intelligent--brilliant. By the age of three he was already trying to figure out simple math, and by five he had learned how to type. It astounds me how quickly he catches on to anything around him almost like a sponge. His brain just soaks it all in like it can’t get enough. Lawrence and Cynthia have him enrolled in a private school where he quickly climbed to the top of his class and even does upper-grade homework, but he hardly has any friends. All he wants to do is read or play with his computer.
Yet even though he’s a genius, it’s still the little things that he really enjoys; Like ice cream, or playing video games, or swinging from jungle gyms with the other kids at the park. And this trip to the zoo is one more thing I want to add to his list of happy memories.
I start up the car and we make our way down the street onto the busy freeway, weaving in and out of traffic. The car has all the most advanced technical amenities one could ask for, and rides as silent and smooth as if it were hovering on air.
“When’ll we be there?” he asks excitedly, looking at me and bouncing up and down. If not for the restraint of the seat-belt, he would have bounced right out of the car.
“It’ll be a while yet, Little Bit.”
“I wanna be there now.” he whines, dropping back down with a sullen expression.
“The animals aren’t going anywhere, I promise. Why don’t you think of what you’re going to get your mom? I bet she’d really like something from the zoo.” I suggest, changing lanes smoothly in the small four door sedan.
“I dunno what she’d like,” he answers, fiddling with the bear’s ear as he talks. “She doesn’t seem happy when I give her things.”
“Of course she’s happy, they come from you.” I say reassuringly, feeling sad by his words but not showing it. “Remember when you gave her that enhanced music disk of all the songs she liked?” He looked up at me and blinked. “That made her happy. I even hear her playing it sometimes.”
This makes him smile and I hope I’ve made him feel just a bit better, although that nagging feeling that something isn’t right still twinges in the back of my mind.
We make the hour long drive to the zoo with little conversation between. Lucas looks out the window mostly, pensive and staring at the scenery as it flashes by. I wonder what he’s thinking. Is he considering what to get his mother from the zoo? Is he curious about why his father hasn’t come home in three weeks? Is he looking at the clouds and making them into shapes with his imagination? Or is the little bit contemplating the universe--the answer I saw somewhere was 42. He looks back at me periodically with those beautiful blue eyes and smiles, and my thoughts stray through the past six years that I’ve been here. They’ve been Incredible, long years filled with scrapes, tears, laughs, easy and hard days, and through all of it, I’ve managed to gain my degree as a music teacher, minor in child development, and watch this amazing young person grow up before my eyes. I don’t have any children, but Lucas is the closest I’ve ever had to a son.
We spend a long, fun filled sunny day at the zoo visiting the lion’s cage, the monkeys and snakes, the colorful tropical bird sanctuary, invading the souvenir shops (Where I end up carrying all the bags), taking pictures left and right, and eating our fair share of junk food and sodas. Even though we had been through almost every shop, Lucas still hadn’t decided on something for his mom. So we find an exhibit we hadn’t seen yet and browse inside.
“Jena! Jena! Come here! Check it out!”
I walk up behind Lucas, who’s pressed his nose against the thick acrylic enclosing a marine exhibit.
Before I’m even at his side, he’s pointing to the different fish inside the aquarium. “Over there. D’you see him?” his face lights up, his eyes following a sleek silver shape making its way around the tank.
“Oh wow.” I breath, peering through the glass. "Very cool." The undersea mammal swims by our part of the window, barrel-rolling right in front of us. “A bottlenose dolphin.”
“He’s great.” Lucas’ awe is as raw as a child’s can get and his eyes never blink once. The dolphin swims by again, coming up to the acrylic by the six year old. He places his palm against the divide in wonder while the dolphin rolls again in front of him.
“Bottlenosed. Of the cetacean family, right?” Lucas’ eyes never leave the tank. “Can’t they find their original pod just by hearing the clicks and whistles of other dolphins?”
“Yes,” I say, my eyebrows arching, surprised, although I should know better by now. “That’s right. They all speak the same language and that’s how they find their families.”
"Very cool."
I smile at the mimic. “Let’s get a picture, ok?” I take the camera from my purse and hold it up to my eye. He plants himself by the tank, smiling broadly. “Ok, one, two...three!” I click just as the dolphin swims by again, catching both in a perfect snapshot of time. Another role of film down.
“I saw it on the Discovery channel once,” he continues and looks up at me then back to the water, but the dolphin has gone to play with other excited visitors. I see him sigh, getting that pensive look again. He seems to get that a lot recently. “Will he ever find his again?”
I pause. There seems more beneath the surface of that question than I can read immediately from his features. Like it holds some other meaning for him. “Maybe someday. Dolphins are resilient and will often surprise you, Little Bit. He’ll find someone and connect to them just as if they were his family.”
“That’s it!” he suddenly exclaims excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I know what to get mommy now!” He takes off down the rounded aquatic hall like a bolt of lighting wearing size 2 sneakers.
“Where are you going? Lucas, Don’t run!” I holler. He stops and turns, then runs quickly back to me, grabbing my hand in his.
“C’mon, I got an idea.”
On the way home, Lucas has the aquarium souvenir shop bag propped in his lap between his chest and the bear, and is sitting cross-legged on the seat. He thought it would make his mother happy if he got her a stuffed dolphin like the one he saw, which was a good idea in my opinion. I take the on ramp onto the freeway that’ll take us home, easily controlling the electric car. “Did you have fun?” I ask.
He nods, looking from the bag, to the outside, to me, and back again. “Uh huh. The Tigers were cool.”
“Well then maybe we can come back someday.”
He nods happily, being silent for a moment and we listen to Nora Jones’ “Don’t Know Why” playing on the car radio. “Jena?” he suddenly asks inquisitively. With him, I never know what it will be.
“mmhmm?”
“Can humans be like dolphins?” his innocence rings clear in his voice while he plays idly with Ridley’s left ear.
“In what way?”
He fumbles for the words. “Like the families. Like how dolphins find their families by their whistles, but if they can’t they find someone else to be their family?”
I’m taken back and don’t know what to say. Why would he ask me something like this? But his face remains as curious as the feeling I get. “Yes, I suppose so. Why are you asking me this?”
He shrugs. “Just curious.” That’s all he says as he rolls up the bag and goes back to looking out the window.
“You have a family, and you have me.” I smile as I say this reassuringly, rubbing his blond head. “And neither of us is going to abandon you, Little Bit.”
“Don’t.”
My eyes fall on him from that one word and my chest clenches. Most kids his age would laugh, just knowing it’s the truth and start playing with some toy lying on the floor of the car. But his, I don’t know, his is different. “I promise.” My response is serious, and I think he knows it. “Course I could have left you at the zoo in the monkey cage,” I joke.
He laughs and swipes at my hand, then starts a conversation about how many monkeys were in the cage, and if they would fight over who got to use a lap top first like a pack of dogs pouncing on a single solitary bone.
Saturday, December 23, 2012.
I can not believe it’s been ten years already. I can’t believe I’m thirty. Oh my God, I’m old!
Lucas is still too young to be left alone, although old enough to make his own decisions, and with the World Power Hydraulic experiment underway, no one else has the time for him except me. So, this being his eleventh birthday I intended to make it one to remember.
The small kitchen fills with the scent of pancake batter sizzling in the frying pan along with the sausages and eggs I’m preparing for breakfast. I scoop the golden pancake onto a tower of others stacked on a plate, then set that down on the table between two place settings. Sitting in the middle of the table is a round chocolate cake with vanilla icing spread all over it, and eleven candles encircling the words, “Happy Birthday Lucas” written in blue icing. I set out the silverware and glasses of orange juice, glancing at the cake. I don’t usually bake, but this is a special occasion worthy of the time spent to make homemade icing and hand drawn electronics--a CD, floppy disks, and a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. They surround the writing.
The atmosphere is cozy and familiar, as breakfast is being served in my home kitchen. Cynthia dropped him off last night on a late rush to the airport again, and said shed be back in a few days. And with Lawrence gone to Australia to oversee his energy project, that left Lucas stranded in upstate NY for about 4 days. So the Little Bit slept in the room I’d made up for him.
Last night wasn’t the first time he’s had to stay here, and I can’t count the number of times before because I simply don’t have enough fingers or toes to do so. It’s his room in this house and therefore decorated any way he wants. Consiquently, there are computer parts all over the room, bits of partly assembled robots he bounces between, cloths on the floor, and a few items from the 1990’s that he found in my attic. I really don’t mind. His presence makes this house feel less empty. Besides, he cleaned my attic.
The door at the end of the hall opens and Lucas steps out barefoot in his pajamas, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He yawns and sniffs the air, smelling the bacon and eggs, and seems to wake up that much more. I turn as he enters the kitchen and greet him warmly.
“Morning,” I say, scooping some scrambled eggs onto a plate and setting it next to the pancakes. “Sleep well?”
“Yea,” he’s obviously still groggy. “A little better than last night. Did mom call?”
“No, not yet, hon. Maybe she will later,” I say and shoo Alex off the table away from the sausages.
He shrugs as if it’s no big deal, then his eyebrows rise in surprise when he spots the cake. “Is that for me?” Instantly he’s at the table, sleep leaving him completely to give way to excitement as he studies the homemade creation.
I smile. “Happy birthday, Little Bit.”
Eagerly, he sits down and reaches for the cake, but I stop him.
“Ah, ah. Not till after breakfast.”
He looks up at me with big pleading blue eyes. “Aw, come on, Jena.”
“Ya know, the more you talk, the slower breakfast will take, and the longer you’ll have to wait. And don’t give me that look.”
Immediately after I say this, he dumps a load of pancakes onto his plate and slathers them with butter and syrup. “You sure we can’t have some now?” he asks between bites. “Chocolate cake does have parts of the food-groups in it: milk, eggs, flour.”
“Yes, but the chocolate and sugar cancel them out, so wait until afterward,” I sit down and start on my own breakfast. “Besides, what’s cake if you don’t have presents to go with it?” I smile knowingly. Unbenounced to him, I have a secret stash of gifts hiding in the house.
“Presents?” His eyes brighten and he grins broadly, shoving a forkful of pancake slices into his mouth. I wonder how many images of things he wants flash through his mind in that second. “What is it? Where are they?” he looks around. “Where’d you put ‘em, Jena? Are they in here?”
He’s so busy hunting for the gifts that he doesn’t even see me swipe a sausage link from his plate until it’s too late.
“Hey!” He whirls back to me and swiftly stabs one of my sausages with his fork, eating the thing whole. He grins at me with sausage-covered teeth and tries to chew the thing, which is almost too big for his mouth.
I laugh at the blatant revenge and pretend to appear as if I’m going to steal another one, which triggers his want to defend his precious breakfast.
“Do your worst,” he growls, meaning to sound savage, but it comes out more comical than anything.
I raise my fork, he counters. I feign an advance, but he blocks. Quickly I shift to the side and back again to attack, but he has his fork there to stop mine and I holler like a terribly portrayed villain from a B rated movie. “Curses! Foiled again by the great Little Bit!”
He laughs openly at me and goes back to eating, all the while acting like a triumphant gold medal Olympian.
Moments later, he pushes the plate away and looks expectantly at me. “Ok, I’m done. Now can we have cake? Where’s the presents?”
“Yes we can, and they’re around.” I clear the table and push the cake up to him, then light the candles. His blue eyes dance over the firelight and the sugary icing, reading the words over and over as I sing “Happy Birthday.”
“Ok, now make a wish and blow out the candles.” I stand on the other side of the table with a vid cam in my hand, watching him decide how to get every candle with one breath. I turn all the lights in the kitchen off, leaving only the flickering candle light. His eyes close briefly--no doubt making the wish--and I wonder what it is. What does an eleven-year-old wish for? Does he want a bike? A remote control car or airplane? More computer games and music disks? Or does he want what I’ve always taken for granted--his mother telling him to blow out the candles and his father holding the vid cam?
His blue eyes open and he leans forward over the cake, nearly dragging the sleeves of his flannel nightshirt in the icing, and blows out every single last candle with one breath.
Whatever he wished for, I hope deep down in my heart that he gets it.
After cutting out a piece of cake for both of us and opening up three gifts--all from me--I send him to his room to get dressed, and I clear the table. I set the robot, the two new RPG computer games, and the new mini-disk player on the living room coffee table and go back into my room for one last thing.
When I return, I find him sitting cross-legged in front of the table playing with the robot.
“Lucas, I think you forgot one.” I stand behind the couch with a large package in my arms and smile. My father would pull this joke on me during Christmas, so I find it appropriate--not to mention fun--to do the same.
His eyes widen in instant joy and he climbs onto the couch, leaning over the edge. I pass the package into his waiting hands and watch as he rips off the paper, tossing it carelessly aside. Alex instantly pounces on the bow and ribbon, getting wrapped up in the paper.
“Oh cool! A laser tag set!” He holds the box up and gazes at it as if it’s made of gold pressed latinum. “I always wanted one of these! Thanks, Jena.”
I shake my head. “Don’t thank me, thank your dad.”
He blinks at me, momentarily stunned with disbelief and it shows on his smooth face. “My dad sent this?” This time he regards it as if it were something strangely alien.
I nod. “Believe it or not, he listens, and he didn’t forget about you, Little Bit.”
His face slowly shifts to another kind of joy I rarely get to see in him, like acknowledging his father cared enough to send the gift and didn’t forget about his birthday strengthened a dwindling hope deep inside of Lucas’--perhaps even the wish.
Ferociously, he tears open the box and holds out a helmet, sensor pads, and laser rifle to me. “I’ll be blue and you be red.”
I take the equipment, grinning and forgetting about where they came from. “Get ready to draw, hombre.”
Excited, it takes him less than a minute to figure out the intricacies of the set, and he straps on the sensors. “Yer mine!” he hollers, grinning playfully. Alex ignores everything, playing with the ribbon and now-shredded paper under the coffee table.
“In your dreams!” I say, snapping the last sensor in place. As soon as the sensors activate, the battle begins.
We spend the better part of the morning diving around the furniture and playing "Alien Hunter laser tag" in my living room.