“Not a lot is new on my end,” I say breezily. “Just hanging out. Enjoying the summer.”
“That’s good,” he says.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, Pumpkin?”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I am,” he says quickly, as if fathers can’t be upset. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that my note today said Mom called you… about Jonas’s kidnappers.” I feel funny talking about Mom; I know by the way Dad will look at her at my graduation that he still loves her deeply.
“Your note said that, huh?” Dad asks with a strange tone to his voice. My condition is still weird for him. He hasn’t lived with it for all these years.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “Anyway, I was just wondering how you’re feeling about that.”
“Well, I guess I’m feeling a mixture of things, London,” he begins. “Probably like you and your mom are.”
I’m silent, so he continues.
“Your mother said that the kidnappers are giving out names and addresses of the people who bought the babies, so that’s encouraging.”
“But they haven’t heard anything about Jonas specifically?” I ask.
“No,” Dad answers, adding, “your note didn’t tell you that part?”
“No.”
“I guess I’d say that the way I’m feeling is both heavy and hopeful,” my dad says, which is exactly how I’d describe my own emotions right now. “I don’t know, London. Most bad things in life take a while to sort out, but eventually they get sorted. Believing that there will be resolution to all of this has helped get me through some pretty rough years.”
I’m not sure what to say; we’re both quiet for a few moments. Then I switch it up.
“Tell me something about him,” I say softly.
“About Jonas?” Dad asks, as if he doesn’t know who I’m talking about.
“Yes,” I say patiently. “Just something nice. Something I might not know.”
“Hmm,” Dad says as he pages through his functional memory. “He loved sweet potatoes?”
I laugh and Dad laughs and it feels almost normal for a moment.
“Okay…” I say through giggles. “What else?”
“He always chewed on your mother’s cell phone…. No wait, I’ve got a good one! Jonas loved bouncy balls. He’d waddle through the house, collecting any ball he could find, whether it was a real one or just something like an orange that looked like a ball. He’d say, ‘ba, ba,’ and point to whatever round object he wanted until someone gave it to him.
“At Christmas your mom decorated the tree a few weeks before the big day. It was when he was about a year and a half. He was so good; he didn’t touch the ornaments, despite the fact that most of them were round.
“Finally comes Christmas morning, we’re handing out gifts from under the tree, and I think Jonas thought, ‘Oh, so this is the day we get to touch them!’ He toddled on over and grabbed as many ornaments as he could, then proceeded to try to bounce them on the hardwood floor.”
“They broke?” I ask.
“Of course,” Dad says with a chuckle. “They were your mother’s vintage ornaments. They shattered into little pieces all over the floor. Jonas loved the noise but was a bit more careful around bouncy balls after that.
“Anyway…” Dad says, his voice trailing off.
“Good story, Dad.”