His First Choice

Saturday nights were for Jem and Lacey. All night long. They’d spent the night at Jem’s one night. At Lacey’s the other.

Levi thought slumber parties with Kacey were better than going to Grandma’s. Not that Jem passed on that little tidbit to his parents.

Tressa was doing well with her anger management counseling. She was attending extra meetings and classes in addition to those required and reading everything she could get her hands on.

Jem had helped her land a job with a window supplier in a neighboring town. While she didn’t love the fifteen-minute highway drive, she did love the job and seemed to be settling in well.

She’d had four visits with Levi. Three of them had been supervised by social services, and one had been at her house supervised by Jem, so the boy could swim. Because he had said he wanted to play with his basketball hoop.

And now this, the fifth visit, was under Jem’s supervision, as well. It was the Fourth of July. Lacey was in San Diego with Kacey and their parents, spending the weekend at her folks’ beach cottage.

He and Levi had been invited to go, but Amelia was visiting her folks in Wisconsin, and when Tressa had told him everyone else had plans, too, he knew he couldn’t ask her to give up her visit with Levi.

She’d want to know where they were going, which would have involved more lies than he wanted to tell at this fragile stage of the game. Or risk setting Tressa off before she’d had a chance to get a firm hold on the new, calmer life she was making for herself.

He couldn’t risk everything because he had a selfish need to be someplace else.

They were at the park in town, getting ready to watch the fireworks. Tressa had packed a picnic, and while Jem was uncomfortable sitting on the blanket with them, eating sandwiches his ex-wife had prepared, as though they were a happy family holidaying together rather than on a supervised custodial visit, he was also content to know that his son was getting the time with his mother that he needed.

“I wanna slide!” The boy was jumping up and down on the blanket. The bowl of coleslaw Tressa had sitting on a paper plate almost capsized. Jem grabbed the boy just as she grabbed the salad.

“The slide’s too crowded,” Tressa told him, her tone sounding irritated but softening by the last word. Jem was impressed. Those classes were really working. “Too many big kids. Someone could go down behind you, ram into you and...”

“Tressa.” Jem said only the one word. She looked at him.

“I’ll go over with him. Make sure that no one goes down after him until he’s on the ground,” he said.

“The metal will be hot. He could get burned, and then how would I explain that? It could look like I did it, or at the very least, that I should have known better and been able to prevent it.”

He saw the fear in her eyes and understood completely. She felt hunted. She was going to lose everything by simply being herself.

“Give it time, Tress,” he said, feeling real compassion for the sweet, loving person trapped inside damaged emotions.

She nodded.

“I’ll check the slide. If the metal’s hot, he won’t go down.”

She nodded again.

“Yeah! Slide!” Levi cried out. He took Jem’s hand. And then stopped, turning back to hold out his other. “Let’s go, Mom!”

Jem saw Tressa wipe away a tear as she got up to join them.

* * *

LEVI SLID AGAIN and again, climbing the stairs, yelling for his parents to watch him and then putting his hands in the air as he made the quick trip down.

It was great fun. Until he tried to get fancy and lift his legs up in the air like he’d seen another kid do.

That kid, who was easily twice Levi’s age, had lain back, his head on the slide, as he’d gone down.

Levi failed to put his head down and hit it on the end of the slide when he reached the bottom.

Jem had moved in as soon as he’d seen what was happening, but hadn’t been in time to prevent the head bump.

Levi took it like a man. He rubbed his head. Stood up. And turned to Jem. “Did you see that, Dad? That was cool!”

Ready to tell his son to keep his feet on the slide if he wanted to go down again, Jem didn’t get the chance as Tressa rushed up. “Are you okay?” she asked, feeling the back of the boy’s head. “Oh, God, Jem, he has a bump. He has a bump on the back of his head.”