“You didn’t.” She looked up from under her thick lashes. “It sounded kind of sexy, actually.”
Oh shit. I was just screwing around. The last thing I needed was for Brendan to think I was hitting on his teacher. Or Bridget. Luckily, Little B was heading my way with two balloons.
“Can you throw these at the dunk tank, Uncle Simon?”
“Sure, buddy.” I nodded at Miss Santoro. “Don’t worry, I’m only going to use one hand.”
Field day ended at three o’clock, and all of the dads were taking their kids home with them. Brendan usually went to an afterschool program because Bridget worked, but I didn’t want him to be the only kid there today. So, instead, I took him for ice cream and then headed to the hospital. There was less than an hour left to Bridget’s shift, so I figured he could hang around in the staff lounge and raid the snack machines while he did his homework. We were both excited to surprise his mom.
Bridget was behind the nurse’s station when we walked in, typing away on the computer, so she didn’t see us come into the ER.
I leaned down and whispered to Brendan. “You wanna sneak up and scare her or should I?”
He grinned. “Me.”
Bridget nearly jumped out of her skivvies when he snuck up on her and growled. “Oh my God. What are you doing here, Brendan?”
“I came with Simon.”
“Simon? Why were you with Simon?” She turned to me. “I was wondering why you weren’t here yet.”
“Simon was my uncle today. He came to field day and beat all the other dads.”
“He did?”
“Yep. And that’s not all. You wanna know what else happened?”
I’d assumed he was going to spill about our getting ice cream.
Bridget said, “Of course. What else happened that I don’t know about? It sounds like I’m in the dark on a lot of amazing stuff that happened today.”
Brendan scrunched up his nose. “Miss Santoro was making googly eyes at Simon. I think she wants to marry him.”
Great. What happened to bro code, Little B?The entire ride home from the hospital, I couldn’t stop thinking about Simon attending the field day event and what that meant to Brendan.
On one hand, I thought it was the sweetest, most heartfelt thing anyone had ever done for us. On the other hand, it was a bit irresponsible. I didn’t want Brendan becoming attached to Simon only to be devastated when he ultimately moved away. Simon being there for Brendan was like a temporary Band-Aid for a wound that wasn’t going to go away, and there was a very good chance that my son could end up hurt even more. Simon leaves and then what?
But through my rearview mirror, the smile on Brendan’s face couldn’t be ignored. He seemed to be mentally reviewing the day’s events. He deserved these moments of joy, which were few and far between. Thus, my conflicted state.
Simon had apparently switched shifts with another doctor in order to attend the field day, so he wasn’t working tonight. He was already home when Brendan and I arrived back to the house.
Simon didn’t join us for dinner that night, though, like he sometimes would. I assumed he must have been exhausted from his role as a human punching bag for a bunch of grade schoolers. So, I didn’t bother him, even though I was itching to talk to him.
Around nine-thirty, after Brendan had gone to sleep, I heard Simon in the kitchen.
After lowering the volume on the TV, I got up from the couch and tied my cardigan around my waist before venturing into the kitchen. “Hey.”
“Hi,” he said. “I was just going to make some tea. You want some?”
“Sure.”
The tone between us tonight seemed different, less playful. There was definitely an awkward tension in the air.
“Thank you for being there for him today.”
Placing the teabags into the cups, he shrugged. “It was nothing. It was his idea. I couldn’t disappoint him.”
“I know. He told me he asked you to go.”
Simon looked at me. “I didn’t want you to think I overstepped any boundaries because I happened to see that flyer. If he hadn’t come up with the uncle idea…I would never have—”
“No, I understand what happened. He’s very hard to say no to when he gets excited about something. I get it.”
He could apparently sense that there was something more on my mind.
“What’s wrong, Bridget?”
“I’m just a little concerned he’s going to get attached to you.”
“You think it’s bad that he’s getting close to me…”
“I don’t know.” I just kept shaking my head. “I don’t know what the right answer is.”
“If he looks to me like a favorite uncle, I suppose there’s no harm in that. As long as it’s not like…” he paused.
I finished his sentence. “As long as he doesn’t look at you like a father.”