My List of Things To Do

Boyd

Once upon a time, I had lofty dreams and goals. My parents have afforded my siblings and me with more opportunities than we could ask for, even though they came here as immigrants with high school educations. They were determined and worked hard to achieve what they have. So I may complain about my mother’s overbearing nature, my father’s willingness to turn a blind eye to said overbearing nature, or their insistence on maintaining a strict family dinner schedule, but I am grateful to them both.

On the flip side, that comes with a lot of pressure. The unrelenting need to make their hard work pay off. The never-ending feeling that you have to be an even greater success because that’s what they sacrificed for. For us. For me. It all has to be for something.

It took me a lot of years and a major detour to figure out what that something would be for me. Holden and Phoebe both decided on their “something” and never wavered. They both committed to their chosen purpose and haven’t changed course. I envy that about them, but at the same time, my detour has led me here, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.

“Boyd?” My sister draws my attention, breaking the same train of thought I have every time I enter my parents’ house. “Do you want to hold her?” She gestures to Grace.

“Uh, sure.” No, I don’t really want to because she looks fragile and temperamental, but my sister can be terrifying, so I’m not about to turn her down.

She passes me Grace, instructing me to make sure I hold her head. I look into her piercing blue eyes that have already guaranteed she gets whatever she wants from my father and her father. The tiny thing has Phoebe’s fierceness already. It doesn’t take long before she begins fussing, but everyone else has left the room when I break the trance Grace had me caught in.

“Guys? Hello?”

No answer. Grace is getting louder and more determined. Whatever is upsetting her is out of my area of expertise. Which, when it comes to babies, I have no expertise.

“Phoebe? Aaron? Holden? Anyone?”

Grace is morphing from a beautiful little angel into a fire-breathing dragon in a hurry, and I’m too afraid that if I stand up, I’ll drop her.

I try rocking and softly bouncing her, but it’s not helping. Suddenly, I feel a vibration on my forearm, and she goes silent. I stare at her for a second, wondering if what I think just happened actually happened.

“You good?” Holden peeks his head around the corner. I know he’s put a lot more effort into bonding with Grace than I have, so he’s comfortable with her.

“She just farted on me. Is that normal?”

Before Holden can answer, she lets another blaster go, and I’m not convinced it was just a fart. My jaw drops, but I keep Grace held close to my chest. Even once I’m certain it wasn’t just a fart.

Holden chuckles—because farts are a cheap comedic ploy no matter how old you get—and confidently lifts Grace from my arms, placing her head on his shoulder. “Phoebe can deal with this one. Apparently, the full-on butt explosions are normal. It was news to me too.” He leaves the room with Grace and heads toward the back of the house.

Here I was thinking I got a defective niece because little girls are portrayed as sugar and spice and all things nice. There’s no way pigtails and bows are going to mask that kind of firepower.

I suffer through dinner, once again listening to my mother discuss Grace’s liquid bowel movements while she pours gravy on her food. If I don’t choke this down, Mum will be on my hide asking what’s wrong, oblivious to the real cause of my appetite loss. How does no one else see the connection?

Stop thinking about it. Focus on something pleasant. Coffee. Boston Legal. Free shipping. Sophie.

I drop my fork, surprised Sophie came to mind. Everyone except Holden looks at me, questioning me with their eyes. They’ll have to try a lot harder than that to get the truth out of me.

“Sorry. Dropped my fork.” I pick it back up to wave at them, as if they need clarification what a fork is.

Slowly, each family member returns to their disgusting conversation, while I return to my thoughts. Unfortunately, the comedic dynamic between James Spader and William Shatner doesn’t consume my focus. Nor does the benefit of Amazon Prime. No, I focus on the brunette I shouldn’t be thinking about.

Mercifully, my dad is distracted by Grace, and Mum is distracted by Holden. That means I escape my parents’ house an hour later without being grilled about my day-dreaming and lack of conversation.

It turns out, returning to my empty house doesn’t alleviate my torturous thoughts, and my head is too much of a whirlwind to sleep. What kind of masochistic moron continues thinking about a woman who is in a committed relationship? I’m not a home-wrecker. Right and wrong matter to me. Self-respect and integrity matter.

I head upstairs to my office and sort through some mail. I’ve been staring at this event information for two weeks, debating if I want anything to do with it. For my career’s sake, I should go. But I need backup. I pick up the phone and dial my best friend’s number.

“This better not be work related,” she answers.

“Would you hang up if it was?”

She huffs. “Shut up. Aren’t you supposed to be at your parents’?”

“I was. I got home a little while ago. What are you up to?”

“Trying to tell my son that we can’t afford season tickets to Toronto SC next year.” She groans, which is met with a grumble from Phoenix in the background. “He seems to think going to a few soccer matches is worth the trade-off for our apartment.”

I collapse against the back of my office chair. “How much are tickets?”

“Nope. Don’t even think about it. He needs to learn to accept no as an answer sometimes. You’ve done enough.”

I’ve always had a soft spot for Phoenix. He was in first grade when Monica and I started working together, and I think part of me still sees him that way. The shy little kid who was trying to make sense of the world after his dad left. Monica’s family disowned her when she got pregnant because that didn’t fit into their plans for her, so she’s been on her own since she was seventeen. And she’s never once complained about it. She’s always worked hard and been an amazing mother.

So as much as I’d like to swoop in and cater to Phoenix’s wants sometimes, I’ve always tried to respect her word as final.

“Fine. But maybe we can catch a match sometime.”

“That would require time off.” She calls out something to Phoenix, but must have her hand over the phone because it’s muffled. Then she returns to our conversation by asking, “Did you call for something?”

“Not really. Just to say hi, I guess.”

“That bad, huh?”

I freeze. “What do you mean?”

“Boyd, you know I love you like my best friend and family rolled into one. But you never call just to say hi. You call for work schedule updates, to make plans for something, to check on us… never just for a chat. So, are you going to tell me?”

A huge part of me wants to confide in her that Sophie is stuck on my mind and she shouldn’t be there. Confess that I keep thinking about someone who is in a committed relationship. But Monica would hate me for it. Phoenix’s father cheated on her for years before she found out and they ended things. Even though I’d never step in between a happy couple, just knowing I’ve thought about the ‘what ifs’ would make Monica see me differently. So I keep it to myself until I can push thoughts of Sophie from consciousness. Permanently.

“Will you come to this stupid gala with me?” I blurt.

Over the years, we’ve catered several events together and Monica always makes them tolerable. She has a way of patronizing people with compliments they’re too self-absorbed to see the irony in.

Silence.

“Mon?”

“Just trying to wrap my head around the word ‘gala’. Gag. Sounds miserable.”

That’s almost the exact reaction I had when I found out about it. If it wasn’t an important career move, I’d have shoved the paperwork through the shredder and slept soundly. “Please?”

“You know you’re the only person I’d consider this for?”

“And I adore you for it.”

She groans. “Fine. You owe me. Send me the details and I’ll figure something out for Phoenix.”

He shouts in the background, “I’m thirteen! I don’t need a babysitter!”

“This child. I hope he realizes I’m saving up embarrassing stories about him from his potty training years.”

“Like when you were teaching him to pee standing up,” I prompt.

Monica starts howling. “But he didn’t understand and his little poop dropped on the floor.”

More evidence that bathroom humour never loses its lustre. Even I almost crack up. Phoenix shouts something in the background, but I don’t understand over Monica’s cackling.

Once she’s breathing at a normal rate, I revert her attention back to the made-up reason for my call. “I’ll text you the details. I’m sure Phoebe can hang out with Phoenix for a few hours. As long as he doesn’t give Grace any potty training tips.” Really, after the blaster on my arm earlier, I’d hate to think how that scenario would play out with her.

Monica starts babbling, attempting to form words through her laughter. Finally, with no sign of it letting up, I bid her good night and end the call when she huffs an acknowledgement. I hear Holden stomp in a moment later, so I tiptoe into my room and close the door in case he needs to use the office.

And instead of going to bed and falling asleep from sheer exhaustion like I normally do, I think about her.