John stepped out the back door, across the deck, and into his lawn. The dry, brown grass crunched as small clouds of dust billowed beneath his shoes with each step. It was only ten, and already the mercury was into the nineties.
Still, John smiled. No rain meant no mowing. A happy Father’s Day indeed!
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(Pardon the shameless self-promotion, but I’m pretty excited about an event we’re hosting this weekend. Details of our World Vision Benefit BBQ can be found here.)
The crowd was larger than expected, and everyone was having a good time eating and talking. “Ready?” I asked.
“Ready,” she said. Making her way across the yard she grabbed the microphone and turned it on.
“Everyone… Thank you for coming. I’d like to share a few words about why we’re having this little party.”
Oh no! The big game and Trina’s company dinner are on the same night. What’s Mac going to do?
“I know,” Mac thought. “I’ll hide a tiny radio in my pants pocket and run the earphones up my coat sleeve. No one will ever notice!”
*****
Mark changed the channel confident he’d seen that episode before.
Approaching the house, the silence disturbed him. Where were the squealing children? The music blaring from his son’s bedroom? It was too quiet.
Opening the door, he caught a whiff of Pine-Sol rising from the kitchen floor… on a Tuesday!
It could mean only one thing… an infamous “last second visit” by his parents.
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Tommy and Frank say quietly at the bar nursing their beers. Neither said anything – it wasn’t their way – but they were worried about Mark. It wasn’t like him to not show up… not even for something as trivial as happy hour.
Suddenly the door burst open. “Drinks are on me, fellas! I’m having a boy!”
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The clock struck three in the morning as John shook the match out and took a drag on a fresh cigarette. Grabbing his drink, he made his way over to the couch and sat, exhausted yet unable to sleep. The haze of smoke stung his dry eyes. He took a sip and sighed. “Fucking Raleigh!”
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At long last the kids were quiet, and Mark had finished enough tasks that he felt justified going to bed. Midnight had long past, and soon someone would be asking, “Daddy, what’s for breakfast?”
Closing his eyes, he felt thankful for today and overwhelmed at the prospect of tomorrow. He had never imagined parenting alone.
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He lay in bed, lights out. He was drenched in sweat and his nerves were shot. The lone thought racing through his mind: “Could he score again before it was too late?”
His wife walked into the bedroom and started to speak. “Hon-”
“Not now!” he cried. “It’s 1 – nil with only five minutes left.”
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Balancing on his toes, four year old Timmy stretched his left arm as far as it would reach toward the artifact glimmering and twinkling atop the craft supplies in the corner. As he walked away, proudly clutching his shiny, new treasure, the baskets crashed to the floor behind him spilling their contents across the room.
I was speechless. I knew this day would come eventually, and still I wasn’t ready for it. I thought there’d be some kind of build up, something that made the moment special; yet Christopher just popped the question one morning in between bites of Cap’n Crunch.
“So, how do babies get inside the mommy’s tummy?”
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