“You mean not Mike.”
“For now.”
“He’s the only reason I can keep my job some days.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
My voice cracked.
“I work nights in an emergency room. My son has severe autism. His father left. I don’t have family here. When Leo melts down and I’m elbow-deep in someone else’s crisis, Mike is the person who shows up.”
“I’m not questioning that.”
“But you are.”
“Sarah, please. This is not personal.”
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“It is personal. You just don’t have to live with the consequences.”
I hung up before I said something worse.
For a while, nobody moved.
The hot air buzzed with cicadas.
Somewhere down the street, a lawn mower started.
Leo lined up another bolt.
Mike stood slowly.
His face was calm.
Too calm.
“What happened?” he asked.
I swallowed.
“Some parent took a picture of you at Little Lantern.”
He nodded once.
Like he already knew the ending.
“Posted it?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Figured something was off. Lady kept staring.”
“She had no right.”
“No,” he said quietly. “But people do what people do.”
That made me angry.
Not at him.
At how ready he was to accept being misunderstood.
At how practiced he was at shrinking himself so other people could feel comfortable.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Act like this is normal.”
He looked at me then.
His eyes were tired.
“Sarah, look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“No,” he said softly. “Really look.”
I did.
The shaved head.
The scar over his eyebrow from an old garage accident.
The thick beard.
The heavy boots.
The tattoos crawling up his neck.
The sheer size of him.
“I know what people see,” he said. “I’ve known a long time.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Maybe. But they still see it.”
Leo suddenly stood up.
He grabbed the weighted plush dinosaur from the porch chair and pressed it against Mike’s shin.
“Unc Mike,” he said.
Mike looked down.
Everything in his face changed.
“Yeah, buddy?”
Leo tapped the dinosaur against his boot.
“Soup.”
I blinked.
Mike blinked.
Then he barked out a laugh so sudden and soft that it startled both of us.
“Kid’s bossing me around now.”
Leo looked at me.
“Soup.”
I wiped my eyes.
“Okay, baby. Soup.”
For one hour, we pretended nothing had changed.
We ate canned soup at my small kitchen table.
Leo only ate crackers.
Mike fixed the loose handle on my cabinet with a screwdriver he pulled from his pocket like every man in the world carried tools next to his car keys.
I watched his huge hands move carefully around Leo’s plastic cup.
I watched Leo lean his shoulder against Mike’s arm.
Not hugging.
Leo rarely hugged.
Just leaning.
Trusting.
And I knew.
I knew tomorrow’s meeting was going to ask me to choose.
