Let Go

Do you remember when you found out? I was probably 6- Judy Blume told me (Fie you Superfudge.). Mom said, as I pointed to the page and demanded the truth, “As long as you believe he is.”

So I went upstairs that Christmas Eve and believed with will like steel, and he came. Nevertheless, that was my last year for him even though I kept pretending to believe.

Today, by the trampoline, the neighbor said, “The subject came up…kids at school, etc, and I tried to divert their attention, but they were looking it up-“ fade to flips of little big boys,

“He looks more breakable than yours,” I say.

“That’s because he belongs to you,” the neighbor replies. They giggle and flip some more. I say that we were on the cusp anyway, 2nd grade. I laugh and say, “It was starting to feel a kind of like a lie-I guess.”

Inside with dinner cooking, I snuggle him. “Are you ok?” I ask. He rests into the arm, but tense.

“I think I have a sore throat” which he probably does because we are all stuffy. For a second, I think that maybe he doesn’t know for sure, “and that is ALL I want to talk about.”

8 years of ecstatic, meant for one morning of the year only, wait at the top of the stairs and I’ll see, turn on the Christmas music and dance around with the joy of it sort of wilt into the big blue eyes that say, “I used to believe in magic.”

And the baby is sick for the first time. I am thinking as I lay on the floor next to his bouncy seat all night so I can be sure he is safe. One hand is on his chest while he labors to breathe through his first stuffy nose. We hold on, and then we let go. We watch them growing because of us, despite us. He will be a little man one day, too. But S will probably pretend for him and for D because the magic is worth it, and the letting go part hurts.