It's early afternoon and we're sitting at the dining room table. I'm staring off into the open space of the day while Sully draws himself with Spider Man colors and then cuts himself out with his little blue scissors. Branches just outside of our windows rock in the rushing wind, such a hurry and such a fuss. We're sharing a bowl of pistachios.
Just before we moved to the dining room table I was sitting in the kitchen thumbing through the forms for his next school year: Kindergarten. I watched the same branches twist and bend. Listened to the same wind tap the windows. I stretch to hear a recent conversation between my two about being at school together next year. I reach out and pull the happiness and excitement in their voices from my memory and involuntarily swallow.
He's with me every afternoon. Just the two of us. It's not always easy but it is mostly easy now. I love his company and can't quite wrap my mind around what it's going to feel like, sound like, next year when both of my boys are at school together five days a week, seven hours a day. I have so many ideas and plans for when that times comes, but I know I will wish for these days when we just sat together on a quiet winter afternoon.
