Flump! I look up at the ceiling. Cal’s bodyfall has announced he’s awake. Hungry to escape the Sunday routine, I time my five-year-old from floor flop through likely toys-everywhere-obstacle-course, to hallway squeal and run/slide down the stairs. He’s passing me in the kitchen nine seconds later.

Charging full steam towards the back patio door still in his Squirtle Pokemon onesie, I desperately crave a hug. He barely gives me a glance. It hits hard but I hold a smile as if it doesn’t, though, there’s no one else here to convince.

Grabbing his Thor gardening gloves, he slips and bangs his knee and elbow. I move to him but he springs up and is out the door before I’m halfway to him. I laugh. That fall would’ve taken me out for a good half hour. Cal shoots me a snotty glance thinking I’m making fun of him. I can’t win.

Across the grass, he races to his father, who’s weeding the black-eyed Susans along the back fence. I feel a surge of loss watching him and experience a future saying goodbye as we pull away from a college dorm or his first apartment.

“You promised not without me!” He berates, plopping down next to his dad and burrowing mindlessly into the dirt, gleeful and happy. Cal prefers him. It’s always been that way. They have a different bond and they light up when they’re in a room together.

Just watching my two men, I feel a love so deep I want to tell someone about it…but yeah, I’m alone.

Hugh plays with our son’s hair, letting the soil fall into the boy’s face, and Cal laughs and does it back.

“I was going to get you after I found your surprise,” Hugh says.

“What surprise?”

He takes Cal to a deeper hole and I can’t make out what they see but Cal pulls back, terrified and excited. Soon, he’s leaning in. 

“Hold your hand out,” Hugh says gently.

Cal does and his dad coaxes a giant beetle onto his tiny hand. The boy’s exhilarated. With a glance, Hugh invites me into the moment then looks at our son and through him I can feel our old love, before things got…complicated…and it feels so good.