As I approached the patio, I saw Remy sitting in a booster seat in the chair at the head of the table. He had a container of scented modeling dough in front of him and was rolling a lump of it around in his hand. That was one of the gifts I gave him for his third birthday, and it made my heart warm to see him playing with it. Grant’s parents had scoffed when he opened it, thinking it was a ridiculous gift. But I wanted Remy to experience his senses as much as possible, and my research said tactile experiences as a baby were important to healthy brain growth. I wanted my son to be smart, creative, and expressive, and that started young. Fortunately for me, Remy took to the gift instantly and apparently hadn’t lost his shine on it.
“Hello,” I said when I got to the table.
Grant gave a not-so-subtle look at his phone to check the time. I didn’t take mine out to compare notes, but from my vantage point, I could see I’d arrived with a couple minutes to spare. Satisfied, he turned to me. His eyes locked on the coffee cup in my hand. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. The look was enough.
“Remy,” I said. “Mommy’s here.”
His face lit up, and he turned a bright smile toward me.
“Hi, Mommy,” he said. “Want to play with me?”
He held the lump of dough out toward me. It still amazed me sometimes how adaptable he was. Just by hearing my voice, he could tell exactly where I was. But I guessed that wasn’t really adapting. It was all he ever knew.
I walked up and crouched down beside his chair. I purposely positioned my body close to him so he could feel and smell me. My finger sank down into the purple dough, and then I leaned forward and smelled it.
“Oh, grape. That’s a wonderful smell. Do you like it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Pink is better.”
“What does pink smell like?” I asked.
“Cotton candy.”
“That sounds so nice. I’d like to smell that sometime. Do you have it in your pack?” I asked, glancing down at the ground around his chair to find his little backpack. When I didn’t see it, I looked across the table at Grant. “Where is his backpack?”
“He doesn’t have it with him today,” Grant said.
“He doesn’t have it? Why not?” I asked.
“I thought it would be nice if we just stayed around here today.”
“Stay around here?” I asked. “You mean at the coffee shop?”
“The whole point of these visits is so you can spend time with your son, right? Well, then spend time with him. You don’t have to go somewhere else for it to count,” he said.
“Grant, that is not what we agreed,” I said through gritted teeth
Grant shrugged, taking another sip of his latte. “Do something about it.”
He was taunting me. He knew just as well as I did there was nothing I could do. The arrangements we made over the phone the other day weren’t legally binding. They were just an agreement between the two of us. One I stupidly believed he would actually uphold.
I drew in a breath and forced myself to stay calm. I didn’t want Remy to hear a fight, and I didn’t want to cause a scene in public. “You agreed to the arrangements. Saturdays I get to have Remy to myself and don’t have to go to your house. I already go to your place on Thursdays.”
He shrugged, his foot bouncing like he was dancing to the music in the background. “I don’t have any paperwork that shows that’s the arrangement. Do you?” He sat up, leaning forward on the table and folding his hands together in a posture that was both dismissive and aggressive. “It seems to me the paperwork I have states I have full custody of Remy. Your only legal right to visitation is on my terms. You are the one who agreed to that.”
“Because I had no other choice.”
Grant threw up his hands and sat back again, slinging his arm over the back of the chair. “Well, you do now. You can either deal with this the way I want it and spend some time with your son. Or you can leave and not have anything to do with him.”
Remy’s face lifted toward us like those were the first words of the discussion he heard. He didn’t say anything, but his expression was enough to cut my heart out. Without a word, I pulled out the chair closest to him and sat down. Grant might have had me by a puppet string, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying it.
The visit with Remy was good after I was able to block Grant out. We played with his dough, and I read to him as he ate a fruit cup and sipped on milk. If I just pretended nothing else around us existed, it was like we were alone. When he was done eating, he crawled into my lap for more of the book I was reading him. Soon, his head drooped and rested on my shoulder. I cradled him close as he slept, cherishing the few precious moments with him. He was only three but already seemed so big. It was hard to look at him and think he was at once so tiny and growing so fast.