He huffs. “Steve Trout is the coolest.”
Oliver clears his throat. “The coolest,” he says, stabbing his finger in the air to make his point, “is Mariano Rivera. A Yankee through and through.”
Aunt Jane weighs in, clearing her throat. “The coolest is . . . Reggie Jackson. He was also a Yankee for a spell.”
Oliver quirks a brow. “Jane. You’re not even old enough to have watched him play.”
With narrowed eyes, she taps him on the head. As he deserves. “Rephrase, please.”
Oliver rearranges his features, barely looking contrite though. “I mean, how can he be your favorite? He played ages ago, well before you started watching the Yankees.”
“I can read. I’ve read plenty of baseball history books.”
I catch Oliver’s gaze and mouth, You’re in so much trouble.
“And all those books say the Yankees are better than the Dodgers,” Oliver adds.
Ethan rolls his eyes, laughing. “You’re all so weird. It’s not like that with me and my friends. We like who we like. Doesn’t matter what team they play on. Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox.”
I cover his mouth with my hand and look at Aunt Jane and Oliver. “Forgive him. He knows not what he speaks.”
My son licks my hand. Laughing, I peel it off him as he cackles. “Gross,” I say. “You’re like a dog.”
Dancing a victory jig, Ethan says, “Sounds like a compliment. Also, what did you think would happen when you put your hand on my mouth?”
“He makes a valid point,” Oliver puts in, clapping my son on the back then pointing at me. “You were kind of asking to get licked, Liam.”
“Evidently I must ask for it every day, since I get licked every day. Usually by a cat though,” I say offhand.
“And now all the cats of Duck Falls will be giving you a lick,” Aunt Jane says, a soft and slightly sad smile curving her lips. She’s my mum’s sister, and she moved here from England a few years ago. “I’m glad you’re going there to help out.”
“I’m glad I can help too,” I say on a rough swallow, choking back the reasons why I’m helping out. Reasons I fervently wish were different. “But on that note, I should go.”
Aunt Jane wraps her arms around me and plants a quick kiss on my cheek. “If you make me linger at a goodbye, my mascara will run, and I will be most upset. Besides, we’ll get together for Christmas and other holidays,” she says, her voice breaking, something I rarely hear it do.
“Yes, we should be getting on. The airport waits for no one,” I say, a note of sadness slipping into my voice that I attempt to shove away before anyone can notice it. At least I hope they won’t notice it, this patchwork of family that I have here in New York. They’ve been my people for the last several years, and it’ll be weird not to see them whenever I want.
“I guess this is it, and in all seriousness, I will miss you,” I say to my cousin, emotions bubbling to the surface momentarily.
Oliver scratches his jaw and blows out a long stream of air, his tone turning serious too. “Hate to admit it, but I feel the same.”
We might give each other a hard time, but we both know the score. We’ve depended on each other. He’s been a regular presence in my life here in New York for the decade I’ve called this city home. We’re two transplants here in the States who have been making our way in Manhattan.
But now I’ve been called back to the other side of the country to responsibilities I never expected, but ones I can’t turn down.
I haul him and Aunt Jane in for a last hug, then say goodbye to this city.
I’m ready.
I’m sure of that.
As much as you can ever truly be ready to leave a city of millions and return to a small town with a kid you didn’t even know you had until three years ago.
Life has a habit of raining lemons, and it’s up to you to make lemonade.
You can’t debate the next chapter in your life for too long when you’ve got a kid on your own. Your job as an only parent morphs by the second. Sometimes you’re head cheerleader, sometimes a psychiatrist, and sometimes a chief janitor.
After Ethan and I settle into the second row of the plane, the flight attendant hands him an orange juice. “Thank you,” he says with a gap-toothed grin. He lifts the cup to his lips, but it wobbles, and he spills the drink on the armrest, the seat, and the floor.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” The apology flies out of him at Mach speed.
“No worries. We’ll clean it up,” I say. This is a piece of cake compared to what I clean up daily—no, hourly—at work.
