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.”
“I wasn’t able to get through on a couple of them. But I don’t want to hold you guys up; why don’t you go on without me?”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“It’s fine if you want to go,” I said, knowing that he probably didn’t have any calls that had to be made right then.
“I appreciate you saying that, but I really should stick around here,” he said.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go have fun without you,” my mother said with a laugh, totally oblivious.
Bill smiled. “You all have fun,” he said.
And then we went out into the city. I felt as though I was able to appreciate the city more than I had in the past because I was there with Cole, and he was obviously enjoying being there very much. Declan alternated between holding his hand and holding my hand, and gazing with rapt delight at the tall buildings, the yellow taxis speeding by, the throngs of people passing us in every direction.
We went to the Children’s Museum first, since Declan had been such a good sport about not going to LEGOLAND.
“Oooh, look at all those balloons!” Declan said, pointing to a brightly-colored array of helium-filled balloons.
“Maybe we’ll get you one on the way out, bud,” Cole said.
Declan was easily distracted from the balloons, though, because there was so much cool stuff. We checked out the dinosaur exhibit, the construction zone, and the Raceways exhibit. I felt like I was a kid again, though my mother and I had only come to the Children’s Museum once that I could remember, a long time ago, when I’d been maybe 7 or 8.
And my mother was right there, taking pictures of Declan, of Cole and me, of the three of us. At one point, she thrust the phone at Cole and asked him to take a picture of us.