Page 3 of Nocturnes & Nightmares
“Kid’s mine, too, in case you forgot.”
“Sometimes, I do,” I say, swiping up the ten bucks still lying on the floor. Rotten bastard.
In the kitchen, I pour a small bit of milk into a glass, and try not to look at the lump of shit on my couch as I pass him again on the way up the stairs to Oliver’s room.
With a smile painted on cold and lying lips, I enter, holding the glass. “Hey, baby. Sorry if Mommy and Daddy were talking too loud. We had some plans to work out for somebody’s birthday tomorrow.”
That doesn’t make him smile. Of course it doesn’t. He’s too smart for those tricks nowadays.
“Know what I’m getting you?” I set his milk on the nightstand and pull his space-themed blanket up to just below his chin.
“I don’t want anything. Except for you and Dad to get along.”
“Believe me, Champ. I want that, too.”
Crawling into bed beside him, I nudge him over with my hip and slide the blanket to cover my legs. Even at ten years old, he still snuggles up beside me, and I stroke his hair, which smells like oranges. “You’re going to have the best birthday ever tomorrow. No fighting. I promise.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Planting a kiss on top of his head, I give him one hard squeeze. “Drink your milk and go to sleep right away, okay?”
“Mom? Do you believe in The Sandman? I mean, he’s not real, right?”
“Sandman? Are you asking if I think there’s a dude who goes around sprinkling sand in everyone’s eyes to put them to sleep?” I frown when he nods, the look of worry etched across his face stirring confusion. Oliver has always been a kid rooted in logic, and it only took him until the ripe age of five to decide Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter bunny weren’t real. “No. I don’t. What’s going on with that?”
“Emmett says he’s real. He says he watches you every night, waiting for the moment when you’re alone and vulnerable. He says he steals your eyeballs. It was in the news, and everything.”
“Eyeballs, huh? Emmett drinks too much soda for his age. If anything, he should be worried about a pissed-off tooth fairy having to collect a mouthful of rotted baby teeth.”
“That’s gross.”
“Indeed. Which reminds me, did you brush your teeth?”
Huffing in obvious frustration, he frowns. “Yes, I did. I’m being serious, Mom. Sometimes, I see … eyes. Watching me through the window at night.”
“Well, considering you’re on the second floor, a dude would have to be pretty ambitious to climb up to the roof just to spy on a sleeping kid.”
“Unless he didn’t have to climb.”
“C’mon, Oliver. I thought you were too old for that stuff. Too wise. You don’t believe in that fantasy stuff, remember?” I push out of his bed and tuck him in, my mind spinning a thousand miles a minute, trying not to let the darkness on the other side of me cast its shadows on him. The unbearable weight of my failed and crumbling marriage that threatens to crush me with such innocent conversation. Sliding his glasses from his eyes, I kiss his forehead and stroke my hand down his cheek. “Time to sleep. Love you, baby.”
“Mom?” he says, as I reach for the door. “If The Sandman did exist, though … is he considered good?”
“Hypothetically, if there was a dude going around sprinkling sand to make you sleep, I’d like to think he was doing it for the right reasons. The world isn’t as crappy as it seems, sometimes, you know?”
“So, even if he does bad things, he’s good?”
“Whatever Emmett told you, and I’ll be sure to check with his mom on that, it’s just a story, Oli.”
He drops his gaze from mine and shakes his head. “Please don’t talk to his mom. I’ll stop asking about it.”
“Good. Go to sleep.”
“But … do you think Dad is good?”
I press my lips together, to keep the truth from escaping me and destroying my son’s perception of the only man he’s ever loved. “I think everyone is born with goodness in them. Some just don’t know what to do with it, is all.”
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