Katherine Schweitzer

Her Son, His Boy

He decided he would be the morning person since she was not inclined to fall out of bed easily. “He may be your son, but he’s my boy,” he said.

It wasn’t a light decision for her to move in together with him, but it had been less easy for her to raise a child for the past five years by herself.. The child’s father had left after seeing the test strip read: “pregnant.”

“I would have taken care of you when he was born. It wouldn’t have mattered that he wasn’t mine,” he said. “I wouldn’t have left you.”

“He is your boy,” she said.

He was true to his predawn commitment. When little boy feet touched down in the adjacent room, he’d roll out from under blankets and tuck them around her. She listened to the two talking in the kitchen and smelled bacon and eggs cooking. She’d stretch, roll over and wonder why he and his ex-wife never had children. Why he had gotten .a vasectomy. They never even owned a dog, he had told her when they first started dating.

He brought the boy’s mother a tray in bed on Sunday mornings. Toast. Coffee. The other finished products of their cooking. The boy always dove on the bed and he always told him to settle down, so as not to spill his mother’s food. There would be a few seconds of silence before the tray was set on the nightstand rather than her lap. The child squirmed close to his mother and he attacked them both. Out of breath laughter took hold of all three.

Sometimes, he took the boy fishing, or to the hardware store, or out for French fries. The two of them chopped down a pine tree once. He did the cutting. The boy yelled, “Timber!” And both carried the branches to be burned later for a marshmallow roast. They built a scarecrow, fixed the vacuum, and hung Christmas lights.

He kissed the boy’s splintered fingers and bandaged his scraped knees. He made the boy a club house. He bought the boy a puppy. He put cool mud on bee stings and cuddled him on his lap until the child fell asleep, then would carry him to his bed.

“I always knew I’d have me a boy,” he told her one night. The child was asleep and they were soon to follow. He tucked his head under her arm and draped his own across her waist.

“How come you never had any kids when you were married before?”

“The ex didn’t want them.” His bristled chin scratched her shoulder.

“You were cheated,” she said. A tear slid down her temple. She pretended she had an itch.

“I know.”

“So, that’s why the vasectomy?”

“No. I got myself fixed because my wife had an abortion.”

The mother wiped her face with a corner of the sheet, but it didn’t matter.