Before Him

“Who did this?” He puts his glass down to trace his fingers over the tiny flower at the corner of the photograph.

“Holland. She’s always been good at this kind of stuff, artsy,” I add. “She’s a teacher. A natural nurturer. She was such good help.”

He scoots a little closer, and his hair falls forward. I ignore the temptation, not even affected. Note to self: there really is no point in kidding yourself.

“Sounds like you made a great team. I guess this is Nana?” he adds, reaching over to turn the page. He smells so good and feels so solid, and I need a reality check. I realise I’m staring at the wrong person, so I dip my gaze.

“What gave it away?” I can’t help but laugh, despite the way my eyes sting with bittersweet tears. “Surely not her grey hair?” Which is actually a vivid and shocking pink. “Nana never cared to bow to expectations. She was truly a one-off.” And I miss her so much.

“Yeah, I can see.” But he isn’t looking at the album anymore as I sense the weight of his gaze.

“This one . . .” I force both of our attentions down and keep up a steady stream of comments and anecdotes as we work our way through Wilder’s Welcome to the World album to the next, which Holland had printed for my birthday.

“Is this his first birthday? Stupid question,” he adds, his finger hovering over the number one-shaped balloon.

“Yep. It was themed.”

“A wild one,” Roman says, surprising me. “I’m an uncle, remember?”

“A good one?” I guess this sounds like a taunt.

“You’d have to ask the Phillips brood, though I’ve dressed as everything from Batman to Jack Skellington at their mothers’ say so. But I have to say that the competition is stiff in our family. For starters, Tee lets the littles ride horsey on his back.”

“Tee is Rafferty, right?”

He nods. “Did the themed parties stop at birthday number one?”

“Not with Holland in charge.” I begin to count the birthday extravaganzas off on my fingers. “Let’s see. So two was Born two Be Wild.”

“Smart.”

“That’s Auntie Holly. Three was Where the Wild Things Are.”

“I love it.” He grins. “Did Wilder identify with Max or the beasties at that age?”

“He worked the costume,” I say, oddly impressed that he’d know the characters from one of Wilder’s most beloved books. I flick the page to a photograph of wild Wilder. “He growled a lot that day and ran his cute little butt around roaring and yelling in his itty-bitty squeaky voice that he was a wild thing.”

“A truly fearsome beast.”

“He was actually, but only after too much chocolate cake.” Roman gives a laugh, and I carry on. “Four, we didn’t do a theme. It was too close to Nana’s passing. We weren’t in the mood to do much more than a small party with his little friends at McDonald’s.”

“I get that.” I know that’s true, but before I can tell him I’m sorry—sorry for his loss—he says, “You don’t get along with your mum, do you?”

“You have a good memory.”

“There’s not much I don’t remember about you.”

Not sure what to do with that or the little burst of pleasure in my chest, I find myself flicking to the next page a little aggressively. “We don’t mention her name for fear of summoning her.”

“That bad?” His expression. Horror or sympathy? It’s hard to tell.

“Honestly? She makes Maleficent look like an amateur. But like I said, we don’t talk about her. For birthday number five, we were all about Wild-e-Beasties.”

“Wildebeest?” he questions, looking at me like I might be a little crazy. “In the yard?”

“Ha! No, wild-artistic license use of an e-beasties. Basically, spiders and beetles and all kinds of other crawling and wriggling things. A guy from the local reptile park brought baby snakes, crickets, and even a tarantula.” I give in to an unpleasant shiver. “Birthday number six was Buck Wild at a local farm. The kids rode ponies and ate wild west hot dogs and rootin’ tootin’ beans.” Oh man, he is so easy to amuse and so beautiful to watch as he soaks all this in that I find myself speaking without fully engaging my brain. “You know you asked if I’d told Wilder anything about his father?”

“Yeah?”

“He knows he has a dad and that he lives far away. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him you didn’t know about him, not at the age he is. I was going to tell him when he was older, tell him the whole.”

“Well, maybe not the whole.” Bad, bad uterus contracting like that just because the hot man sends us a hot look. I watch sort of out of myself as he lifts the wine glass from my hand. “I’m glad he knew a little about me.”

“He knows more than a little,” I confess, “and his favourite stuffy is one that you gave to him. Sent him.”