When Ben was around, he grumbled about Saturdays. I suspect his crankiness was twofold: the fact that Saturdays weren’t about him, and the fact that the hundreds of dollars we spent per season on the kids’ activities took away from his ability to buy more stuff for himself. “Can’t they just run around outside?” he’d ask, apparently forgetting that he was raised on a steady stream of tennis and golf lessons at a private club. This was one subject where I actually put my foot down. All the economizing with on-sale chicken and leaky gutters was so that my kids could have the chance to try things they might enjoy. This made Ben bananas.
He’d ask over breakfast, in front of the kids, which sports he had to do this time. Then he’d show up at the events, admittedly not at all interested, and go ballistic at the refs or the opposing team’s parents. Apparently, he did care a little.
This, of course, applied more to Bernadette, who has a fighting chance of making a team that’s not legally required to take her. Arthur, on the other hand, has two traits that weigh on his athletic future: He’s remarkably uncoordinated and completely disinterested in sports. These are facts, not opinions. I have seen Arthur stop running down the court in the middle of a basketball game to wind his watch. The disgust on Ben’s face every time Arthur walked off the court was impossible to ignore.
Saturdays without Ben are twice as challenging and twice as good. The three of us figure out the plan together over breakfast—how the food exchange will happen, when the change of uniforms and cleats will go down, which games I’ll get to sit through and which I’ll have to drop and run. At the end of every Saturday we order takeout and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
We pull into the garage at about six o’clock. The kids put their equipment away in the mudroom, and I carry up the pizza. The house is dark and I can see the lights on in the tea house. I ask Arthur to go out and ask Leo if he’s hungry.
“I’m not going out there,” he says, pulling a slice from the box.
“I’ll go.” Bernadette is already out the sunroom door. She’s back in barely a minute, and her spark is gone. “It’s messy out there and he’s asleep.”
I wonder if this is a bender. Maybe he just wanted to stay here so no one would be monitoring him. Maybe he plans to spend a drunken week mourning his mom. It occurs to me, once again, what a luxury it is to be single and able to fall apart. Not to mention the luxury of being able to buy yourself a week’s break.
At midnight, I wake to the sound of the toilet in the hall bathroom flushing. I hear him amble back down the stairs and out the sunroom door. I don’t know when I’m ever going to get used to sleeping with the back door unlocked. At least I know he’s alive.
* * *
? ? ?
On Sunday, Leo is up for the sunrise again. For some reason being up early feels like erratic behavior for him. So I say so. “You’re up awfully early for a guy who drinks all day.”
“I do not drink all day.”
“Then what are you doing out there?”
“I look at the fire. I read. I watch the woods in the back. I drink a little.”
“Well, you’re welcome to come into the house if that gets old.”
“I’m fine,” he says. “Here, this is it. This is the best part.” We watch the purple turn to pink turn to orange, and the birds are backlit on the trees.
We both sigh a little when the show’s over. “Want some eggs?” I ask.
“Nah,” he says and goes back to bed.
* * *
? ? ?
Sunday afternoon is beautiful, and we have all the windows open in the sunroom, effectively making it feel like we’re outside. The door to the tea house is open, but I can only see the empty table, not the daybed, where I assume Leo is staring at the ceiling.
I have a pot roast in the Crockpot, which makes me feel like Super Me. Not only was dinner made before my nine A.M. run, but my whole house smells like someone’s cooking me dinner. I don’t ordinarily use the Crockpot on a Sunday, but I know my time is not my own today. Arthur’s first rehearsal is Wednesday after school, and today’s the day this becomes my problem. Today’s the day that all of his “I’ve got this, I’m fine” nonsense turns into a meltdown. He hasn’t got this, he isn’t fine.
I know from my own childhood that when you are ten years old, the stakes are high. You are teetering between childhood and tweendom and any single action can push you forever into the realm of the uncool. The kids around you are unconsciously planning to ditch you in middle school, so if you’re not an alpha child you need to be prepared with a backup friend group. Being in the fifth grade is sort of like trying to disable a live bomb, and if you’re Arthur, it’s like doing it blindfolded.