Firefighter's Virgin

“Um... yeah, I guess. This is kind of a new development.”

“Really? That doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that you could just fake. Kids are good are sniffing that sort of thing out. Anyway, Declan is already having a blast.” He reached over and touched my hand. “And what about you...how’d it go?”

“He actually apologized.”

“He did?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. I mean, it’s shit that he tried to do that in the first place, but it’s good of him to apologize.”

“Apparently, my mother never even brought it up to him in the first place, even though she’d told me on the phone that she had. I think she was afraid if she had, he would’ve admitted to it, and then she wouldn’t know what to do. Isn’t that messed up? Is my family way more messed up than I thought they were?”

“Probably not,” Cole said. “Or, rather, every family’s messed up in some way.”

“Your family doesn’t seem to be,” I said, but then I remembered his sister, how sad his mother had been.

I was just finishing my croissant when my mother and Declan came back into the dining room.

“So,” my mother said, “everything taste okay?”

I nodded. “It’s delicious.”

“And do we know how to get to LEGOLAND?”

“I’m not sure where it is,” I said. I reached for my phone and looked it up. “Um...” I looked up at my mom. “Did you know it’s in Somerville?”

My mother blinked. “Somerville?” she said. “What? I thought it was here in the city.”

“It’s not,” I said. Somerville was about three miles north, and I knew that getting in the car and driving to Somerville had not been on my mother’s agenda.

“I see,” she said. “Well. I had just assumed that it would be here in Boston proper because, well, why wouldn’t I? It seems a little foolish that it’s not here in the city.”

“Are we not going to LEGOLAND?” Declan asked.

I didn’t say anything; I wanted to see what my mother’s response would be. She appeared to have adopted the same tactic and was waiting for me or Cole to respond.

“It’s okay if we don’t,” Declan said after a few seconds of silence had gone by. The three of us looked at him in surprise. “We can go another time. I like just getting to be here!”

“Are you sure, buddy?” Cole asked. “I know that you were looking forward to it.”

“Well... if we don’t go there, we can go somewhere here, right? We wouldn’t have to leave early, would we?”

“Of course not!” my mother said. “Have you ever been to the Children’s Museum?”

Declan shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I know for a fact that one is here right in Boston, and you know what? I think that it might be even better than LEGOLAND.”

I was impressed with Declan’s willingness to forego LEGOLAND; many other kids in his position would have thrown a fit if they found out they might not be able to go, but Declan truly did seem happy just getting to be with all of us and exploring a new place.

We were getting ready to go when Bill came out of his study.

“Are you ready?” my mother asked him.

“You know, I think I’m going to hang back here,” he said. “I’ve got a couple really important calls I need to make.”

My mother frowned. “I thought you took care of all that stuff already.”