TEN

CLAIRE

“You should at least wake him up to brush his teeth and go to the bathroom,” my mom whispers. “He’s going to get cavities.”

I turn out the lamp in Nolan’s room. The drive home took less than two minutes—a few too many stop signs—but he still somehow managed to fall asleep in the car, so I carried him inside and put him straight to bed—karate getup and all. “He’ll be fine, Mom. It’s one night.”

“I don’t know what you were doing out so late. He needs a bath and his books before bed.”

“I can give him a quick bath in the morning before school, and we just went to get a bite of pizza with Jesse. We weren’t out that late.”

“I got your text message,” she says. “What I don’t understand is why you went out for pizza with Jesse.”

“Because he’s Nolan’s uncle, for one. And he’s my friend, for two. And Nolan likes spending time with him. In fact, he’s coming with us to the museum on Friday.”

I say this to spite my mother, to show, in my own way, that she can’t possibly control everything we do—that it’s not up to her to decide who I let in and out of our lives. But even if she was one hundred percent supportive of the idea, it wouldn’t change the way I felt during that long walk back to Jesse’s: that I was grateful he was strong enough to hang on to Nolan to the very end, that he had the endurance to push to the finish line. That, while it didn’t seem like he struggled on the outside, he might have been fighting for us on the inside. Because Jesse did exactly what he promised. He made it all the way back to his house with Nolan hanging on to him like a little karate monkey. Halfway back I’d already decided that even if he lost the bet, I would make sure Jesse still came with us on Friday. I hadn’t seen Nolan so excited.

“Have you talked to David recently?” my mom asks as we step into the hallway.

“Please don’t start this again.”

“If you’re not interested you should just tell him, because he is certainly interested in you and that’s not fair,” she says, folding her arms across her chest.

If she intends to make me feel guilty about not seeing David, it’s not going to happen. I was very upfront with everyone: I’m not looking for a relationship right now. My hands are full enough as it is. It’s not even anything against David, really, except that it’s hard balancing schoolwork with wedding work and Nolan’s activities.

“I texted him the other day. I told him I was sorry we haven’t managed to get together yet and explained that I’ve been busy. It’s the craziest time of year for us.”

She follows me into my bedroom, newly redecorated—new paint, curtains, headboard, and bedspread. Because one day I determined there was no way I could move on from Sean and my old life if I was still living in the same room I occupied when I was twelve. Like Jesse, I’d done my own purging. Tossing, donating, and packing up whatever I deemed too sentimental to get rid of but didn’t exactly want to look at every day. That weekend was a frenzy of activity, and of course my mother didn’t understand—couldn’t wrap her mind around why I wanted—why I needed—to make such a drastic change.

If only it would have worked.

“That’s just an excuse. There’s a new wedding every weekend, no matter the time of year,” she says. “What I really want to know is when are we going to start planning your wedding?”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” I say, grabbing my pajamas from the dresser drawer. “Mom, right now I just want a hot bath and to crawl into bed. I have a project proposal for school to think about, and this Porter wedding has to be perfect if I’m going to get my bonus.”

“You have to think about Nolan, you know,” she says, ignoring me. “He’s going to need a good, stable father figure as he gets older, and few single men out there are going to be okay with a woman your age who already has a child.”

“God, Mom. I get it. So I come with a little extra baggage.”

Little is an understatement, actually. Any guy who walks through my front door will have to deal with a single, working mother trying to turn her life in the right direction, an energetic almost four-year-old, and whatever I’m still hanging on to from the complications with Sean. Toss a meddling mother-in-law into the mix and my stock plummets. I am not an idiot. I realize that, on paper, to most guys I’m not worth the risk. But I don’t need most guys. I only need one. I only need the right one. And he has to be right for both me and Nolan.

“I’m not saying it to be mean, Claire. I’m saying it because you deserve the best. And David is smart and successful and he’s okay with Nolan. When you find that, honey, you have to hang on to it.”

Mom follows me back into the hallway. “I don’t even know if Nolan will like David. And that’s something I have to consider, too. It’s not just about me.”

“So why haven’t you introduced the two of them?” she asks, as if this idea was totally lost on me.

“Because I don’t want to introduce Nolan to a string of guys who may or may not be around long term.”

This seems to be the point my mother was waiting to make because a smug little smile turns her lips. “But it’s okay to bring Jesse around. And go to his house. And get dinner together. And invite him on field trips.”

“Jesse is Nolan’s uncle,” I remind her, taking a clean towel and washcloth from the linen closet and closing the door. “He’s family. It’s a little different.”

She scoffs at this, a petulant child. “The Bryants are no family of mine. Not after what they did to us.”

“It’s over, Mom. It’s done. Yes, they were rude, and hurtful, and they didn’t want anything to do with me or Nolan. But they’re not here. Jesse is here. He is not his mom or his dad. He cares about Nolan. He wants to be part of Nolan’s life and I want him to be and nothing is going to change that.”

“Jesse is moving,” she reminds me. “It’s all nice and simple while he’s here, but what happens when he’s hours away? You’re so worried about bringing David around to meet Nolan, but you’ve introduced him to an uncle he’s barely going to get to know before he walks out again.”

“We are not arguing about this right now,” I say, moving into the bathroom, setting my towel and pajamas on the sink and gathering my soap and facial cleanser.

“We’re not arguing at all,” she says, matter of fact. “We’re having a much-needed conversation.” When I don’t respond to this, she exhales a frustrated sigh. “All I want is for you to give David a fair chance, and I don’t want to see any hearts broken when Jesse’s time here is up.”

Suddenly I realize this has less to do with Nolan and, quite possibly, more to do with me. “It’s not like that. We’re not like that, Mom. Nolan is Jessie’s nephew. That’s it,” I assure her.

“Is it?” she counters. “Because I saw the way you looked at him the other night at dinner. How you laughed at everything he said.”

“It’s called being polite.”

“No. It’s like you were seventeen all over again, sitting beside Sean.”

“Jesse is not Sean.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Jessie is not Sean, Claire. They are two entirely different people. And I’m afraid, the longer he hangs around, the more those lines are going to blur.”

“So which are you afraid of? Jesse leaving or Jesse staying around?”

“Both. I’m afraid of Jesse, period, because there is no way this can end well.”

At this, I close the bathroom door between us and turn on the faucet to fill the tub.

* * *

Still, the words echo in my ears as I pull along the curb of Jesse’s house on Friday morning and give a quick beep of my horn because if I unbuckle and get everyone out, we are going to be late. In less than ten seconds Jesse is on the porch and locking his front door, ready to go. He skips down the steps, crossing the lawn to meet us. He’s wearing a nice pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. It’s unbuttoned, so it flies open as he walks, revealing a tight black t-shirt. I knew he’d carried my kid on his back halfway through the city, but this was a reminder that Jesse was not the lanky boy I knew in junior high and high school. He has definitely grown into a man’s body. I force myself to look away, feeling my cheeks warm as I hope he didn’t notice me staring.

“Uncle Jesse!” Nolan says when he opens the passenger side door and climbs in.

“What’s up, little man?”

“Are you ready for the field trip?” Nolan asks.

“The question is, are you ready for the field trip?” Jesse replies.

“Yeah!” Nolan shouts. Jesse reaches around to the back seat and gives him a high five.

“Hey, you,” Jesse says, nudging my arm with his elbow as he puts on his seatbelt.

“Hey,” I reply, unable to hide my smile. I glance in the rearview mirror. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” I tell Nolan.

We meet at the school and hang out in the back of the classroom until all of the kids arrive and attendance is taken, then wait as the kids board the bus. The museum isn’t far from Nolan’s school, and Jesse and I follow in my car.

At the museum, the chaperones are each assigned a group. Jesse and I end up with Nolan and three other boys and two girls. We’re given free rein of all four floors as long as we meet back in the lobby by eleven-thirty. I grab a map of the exhibits. “Okay, you guys, where should we go first?”

“Dinosaurs!” Nolan says.

“The Weather Station!” a little boy named Cooper suggests.

“Ladies,” Jesse says. “What do you want to see?”

“The Butterfly Room,” one says.

“Okay. So let’s head on up to the third floor to see dinosaurs because that’s actually on the way to The Weather Station, and then we’ll go up to the fourth-floor Insect Pavilion to catch the butterflies and other creepy crawlies. Sound good?”

“Yeah!” they agree.

“All right. Let’s move,” I say.

It isn’t difficult to keep the kids together—they want to stay a group—so we wander through the maze of dinosaur replicas and pause to watch a video on some leaf-eating creature that looks like a lizard covered in feathers standing on two legs.

“I can’t say I’m sad these guys died out,” I say.

“Come on,” Jesse replies. “You wouldn’t want to run into one of these things on your morning commute?”

“No. And I definitely wouldn’t want to have to postpone a wedding because there’s a. . . .” I lean in closer to read the sign. “Oviraptorosaur issue.”

“Are you kidding? Look at his hat. He’s totally dressed for a wedding.”

“Yeah, I suppose. And I say that like mothers of the bride are so much better. This guy might be the best-behaved guest at the entire event.”

“See? Now you’re thinking positively. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a twenty foot chicken from the underworld living among us?”

“Mom?” Nolan says, pulling at my hand. “I want to get a picture of us.” I glance across the room, where a museum employee stands in front of a pre-historic backdrop, complete with a velociraptor and a pterodactyl soaring overhead. A bored-looking guy sits on a stool beside a tripod and camera.

“Okay. Let’s get everyone together.”

“No,” he says. “Me, you, and Uncle Jesse.”

I’m a bit taken back by the idea and his insistence. “Um, okay. That’s fine. How about we do a group shot with you and your friends, and then we can see if Uncle Jesse wants to get a picture with us.”

The employee manning the camera seems less than impressed as I work to get the six kids lined up and tuck Nolan’s shirt back into his shorts, but he manages to offer up a “say ‘troodon’!” The kids smile as he snaps the photo.

“Okay, and we want to get one of this little guy right here and me and . . . Jesse?” I turn to him. “Is that cool?”

“Absolutely,” he says.

The three of us move into position: me and Jesse in the back, Nolan standing in front of us.

“Troodon,” the employee says, with a bit less enthusiasm this time around, if that’s even possible.

“Troodon,” I repeat, smiling. The flash of the camera leaves stars behind my eyes. The guy prints two receipts and hands them to me. “Take these to the front desk on the way out to view your photos.”

I thank him and stick them in my purse.

“He seemed happy to be here,” Jesse whispers, leaning close.

“You got that vibe, too?” I reply.

“It was a strong one.”

After touring the Weather Station the kids want to go into the tactile room, so we head inside, watch a three-minute video on how to properly handle the fur, bone, and shell specimens, and as one of the room leaders works with the kids, showing how they prepare the animal skins, Jesse and I take the moment alone to walk the aisles. He pulls on the drawers, examining shark teeth and squirrel pelts and an owl’s wing and tiny bat skeletons.

He picks up what looks like the skull of an opossum and the lower jaw of a wolf—completely disproportional to one another—and holds them up to his mouth.

“Hello, Claire,” he says in a high-pitched voice, moving the lower jaw to make it look like the skeleton is talking.

“Hi, strange little ‘possum-wolf’ man.”

“I just want to say you look lovely today,” he continues. “I noticed you earlier, and I had to come out of my drawer and tell you.”

“Hmmm. That’s interesting,” I say, playing along. “Did Jesse put you up to this?”

“No,” the skeleton says. “But Jesse happens to think you look amazing every time he sees you, so he definitely wins.”

“I don’t know. I think you still win, Mr. ‘Possum-Wolf, because you told me first.”

“Jesse has trouble expressing what he’s feeling, sometimes. You should cut him some slack. He’s a super-nice guy.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s been through a lot. But . . . I hope he knows that I’m glad we ran into each other, even though I totally commandeered his house.”

Jesse pretends to whisper something into the opossum’s ear. “Jesse says you can commandeer his house anytime you want,” the head tells me.

“Tell Jesse that’s very sweet of him.”

“Nice and sweet,” the animal says. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

“I know.”

Jesse laughs and puts the animal parts back into their respective drawers. I swear his cheeks burn pink, and I can’t help but smile. This is the Jesse I remember from junior high. The nervous, always saying the most random things around me then seeming to regret it, Jessie.

I’ve missed him.

“Aww, man,” I say. “I was just about to ask Mr. ‘Possum-Wolf’ to dinner. He seemed so chill.”

“So you’re into bleached bone and sharp teeth?” Jesse asks.

“I do kind of like that emaciated look he has going on. He should probably check into getting some dental work done, but I know a great orthodontist. We could make it happen.”

“Would you settle for dinner with me, instead?” he asks.

I smile. “Maybe.”

“Mom! Uncle Jesse!” Nolan says, running up to us. “Come see the alligator skull!” We follow him back to the group, and when the kids are finished exploring, head upstairs to the butterfly room for the girls. Nolan and two of his friends are more interested in the tarantulas behind the glass, while the girls and I watch the blue morpho flutter above us and Jesse tries to find the sloth hiding in the tree at the top corner of the room.

“Miss Claire, can you help me?”

Carson, one of the little girls, hands me her bow. Her ponytail is loose.

“Sure,” I say. I take the tie out, smooth her hair, pull it back up and replace the bow. “All set.”

“Thank you,” she says sweetly.

“You’re very welcome.”

At this, something cuts deep in my chest. This want. A desire. A need. Because the truth is I would love a little girl. The dresses and the bows. And Nolan would make a fantastic older brother. And for a moment I feel what my mother must feel when she thinks about my future—that time could run out before I’ve had the chance to accomplish everything I want to accomplish—even though it’s completely irrational because I still have plenty of time to meet someone and get married and think about expanding my little family.

“Claire!” Jesse interrupts these thoughts, waving me over.

“Did you find him?” I ask.

“He’s sleeping.”

I move next to him and peer up. “I don’t see him,” I say.

Jesse crouches lower, puts his head next to mine, trying to get a better vantage point. “Okay,” he says, taking my shoulder and guiding me backward a step. “Try now. Just beside the trunk. You can barely see him for the leaves, but he’s there.” He keeps one hand on my shoulder and points. And even though I am fully aware of how close Jesse’s body is to mine, the warmth radiating, I follow the direction of his finger and, sure enough, see the sloth curled up on the branch.

“Oh my gosh. How cute is that? Hey, did you guys see the sloth?” I ask our group.

By eleven-twenty we’ve finished with the insects, managed to find the snakes, and spent some time with the fish and other reptiles.

“We should probably head back to the front,” I announce. “Elevator or escalator?” I ask.

It’s unanimous for the escalator, so the eight of us head down two levels to the lobby, meeting Nolan’s teacher and her group of kids as we arrive at the information desk.

“Hi. We took some pictures upstairs,” I tell one of the girls, handing her our receipts. She pulls the photos up on the screen. The first—the one of the kids—is great. “Look at Cooper’s face,” I say, pointing. “How much are the smalls without a frame?”

“Five a piece.”

“What kind of discount could you give me if I bought six? One for each kid,” Jesse asks.

“Oh my gosh. You don’t have to do that,” Claire says. “And I was going to take care of Nolan’s.”

“I know, but we were all together, and I want to.”

“If you buy five copies I’ll give you the sixth free,” the girl says.

“Perfect. See?” he tells me. “Now yours is free.”

“Oh, and here’s our other ticket.”

The girl punches in the number and the picture loads slowly on the screen. First our heads, then faces, then shoulders, then the top of Nolan’s head. I suck in a breath at how . . . complete we look. Everyone smiling. My hand on Nolan’s right shoulder and Jesse’s on Nolan’s left. It’s almost like. . . .

“What a sweet family,” the girl at the counter says.