Derek looked out the window. “Cleo isn’t coming?”
I turned to him. “Tomorrow.”
Excitement replaced his dismay. “Does she know how to fish?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can teach her. Does she know how to read the stars?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll teach her that too.” He looked back out the window.
I didn’t invite Tucker or my mother because they could be suffocating at times. While I loved them, I wasn’t completely comfortable with them, not the way I was with Cleo. She was the only person I could be around and truly be myself. Derek used to be the only one, but now I had someone else.
Derek turned back to me. “I wouldn’t mind if Cleo was my stepmom.”
My gaze was out the window, and it took me a few seconds to understand what he’d said, to turn my head back to him, my eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?”
“What?” he asked innocently. “I know you and Mom aren’t going to get back together…not that I want you to anyway.”
I thought that was every child’s dream, to see his parents back together. “You don’t?”
He shook his head. “You weren’t happy with Mom, not the way you are with Cleo.”
I continued to stare at my son, like a deer caught in the headlights.
“I know you love her, Dad.”
“Derek.” Now he was taking it too far.
“What?”
“Don’t say that—especially not in front of her.”
“Why?” he asked blankly. “I thought love was the best thing in the world. Why be embarrassed about it?”
“I’m not embarrassed about it—”
“I love Cleo.”
“And I’m glad that you do. But you can’t say that stuff around people.”
He stared at me for a long time, my own visage mirrored back at me. “I think that’s your problem, Dad. Because you’re supposed to say that stuff.”
After we unpacked our bags, we spent the afternoon on the lake, staying underneath the tarp I’d rigged over the boat so we wouldn’t be sitting in the direct sun for hours.
“Why do I have to sit here if I have sunscreen on?” Derek asked as he held his fishing pole.
“Because sunscreen isn’t enough.”
“But the sun is pretty.”
“Yes, but it’s fire. You wouldn’t stand too close to fire, right?”
He looked up, seeing the circle of light slightly through the tarp. “But it’s so far away.”
“Light can travel endlessly. It’s traveling millions of miles and hitting your skin directly. They’re called rays, and they mess up the DNA in your skin, decompose the strands, and that causes your skin to deteriorate, looked leathery and aged.”
When Derek didn’t talk, that was when he was really listening.
“It causes skin cancer.”
“That’s what killed Grandpa?”
“Cancer, yes. Different kind.”
He looked across the lake, his mind thinking.
“That’s why you need to wear sunscreen and stay out of the sun as much as you can—especially when I’m not around to encourage you.”
“Mom never has me put on sunscreen…”
I knew she loved our son, but she was a shitty parent. “Don’t rely on her to do it for you. Take care of yourself, Derek.”
He nodded and reeled in his line a little bit. “There’s no fish today.”
“Might be too hot. Could be at the bottom of the lake.”
“That could be hundreds of feet deep…”
“Yeah.”
When the sun started to hide behind the trees, we headed back to the house, showered, and then had dinner. We sat on the back patio with the fire burning, and Derek put a few marshmallows on his sticks so he could roast them over the fire.
“You want one, Dad?” Derek asked, sitting in the chair with his stick held in his hands.
Marshmallows weren’t food. They were a bunch of chemicals squished together. But the memories with my son were more important than my religious feelings about processed foods. “Sure.” I put one on my stick and stuck it over the fire.
Derek’s kept catching on fire, so he blew it out and took a bite. “Yuck.”
“Let them brown. Not burn.” I grabbed his stick and replaced the marshmallow. “Like this.” I put mine back into the fire and slowly turned it, letting the white surface gradually turn brown. “It makes the outside a little crunchy, the inside gooey. But don’t keep it in too long. It’ll melt off the stick.”
He copied me and got it right away. Then he made himself a s’more, using two pieces of chocolate instead of just one. “What are we doing tomorrow?”
“You want to go on a hike?”
“Yeah.” He bit into his s’more, getting chocolate and marshmallow everywhere. “I want to show Cleo that anthill I found last time.”
She didn’t have kids of her own, so I was surprised she was so good with Derek. She was a natural. It would be nice to have her up here, for the three of us to relax without the outside world pressing in.
When Derek was finished, he wiped his mouth then relaxed into the chair, staring at the fire. Then his eyes grew heavier, closing altogether before he jerked slightly, doing his best to stay awake because he didn’t want to sleep.