WATCHING BRAD
Epilogue - Part 1
“Gee-sus, Murphy,” I grumbled. I was standing at the vanity in our bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror after I finished shaving. “I hate this grey, Brad.”
Brad appeared in the open doorway dressed in his underwear and slipping his arms into the sleeves of his tan work shirt with the Baie Dankie Landscaping logo stitched on the pocket flap. I looked at him in the mirror, into his green eyes, still sparklingly brightly after all these years.
“Please let me get rid of it, Tiger. Please? I’m begging you. I hate it with a passion.”
“You promised, Pops,” he said softly but with compassion as he looked up at my hair. He reached up with one hand and ran his fingers through it, tenderly smoothing it down after my shower as he returned my gaze. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Pops, and I’m not going to let you spoil it for me. I love the grey, especially at the temples, and I love the salt-and-pepper look on top.”
“I hate looking like condiments on our tablee, Brad. Why do you think I shaved off the moustache?”
“I guess there’s no sense in trying to get you to grow it back again.”
“Not unless you let me colour it.”
I looked back at myself in the mirror. Brad moved behind me, settled his chin on my left shoulder, wrapped his strong arms around me and pressed his labour-toned body against me. The heat rushed into me, even through his always-bulging underwear and the terrycloth towel wrapped around my waist. “I know I promised, Brad, but I detest it. It makes me look so fucking old,” I told him.
“Come on, Ted. You
are old,” Brad laughed. “You’re going to be a grandfather in a few months, remember? I’ll be able to call you ‘Gramps’ instead of ‘Pops’. If you’re gonna be one, you should at least look the part.” If he was trying to lighten my mood, he was failing drastically. “But you still look sexier now than you did the day we got married, and you still bone me up big time. You’ve got to feel this.” He ground his crotch into my backside. I could feel it. “I’ve had ten years to get to love you even more than I did back then, and I still love you more every day. I love all of you, Ted. Everything.” He patted my stomach. “Every single grey hair and even the belly bulge and spare tires you’re carrying around these days. I love every single bit of it.”
“I’ll give you the belly bulge, but I draw the line at spare tires.” The harshness in my voice came through before I could edit it out. “I don’t have spare tires.”
“Okay. Love handles then. Gives me something to hold onto when you’re fucking me.”
I almost said, “Why in hell would you want this to fuck you?” I almost said it, but I didn’t.
I heaved a big sigh and stared at myself. I figured Brad was just trying to cheer me up. What I saw in the mirror couldn’t possibly turn anyone on, even Brad. “I’m too young to be getting old, Brad. It scares the hell out of me.” Brad still looked at me from over my shoulder, his chipped tooth peeking out between his smiling lips and his swollen crotch poking me in the behind. “Just shoot me now. Put me out of my misery once and for all.”
He gave me a tight squeeze, stretched up on his tiptoes to give me kiss on the cheek. “Not gonna happen, Pops. And remember, you’re not the only one getting older. I am, too.”
I looked at him in the mirror again. “You’re not even as old as I was when we met,” I reminded him. “Did you know my father was totally grey before he turned fifty? He started going grey when he was younger than I am now.”
“Well, it’s genetic. You should have been prepared for it, then.”
“No one can prepare themselves for this, Brad. No one can prepare for growing old No one can wake up one day and look in the mirror and seeing this without thinking...” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. I just let it drop.
“How did your dad deal with it?”
“He said he earned every single one of them,” I replied with a sigh. “He said they were a trophy for the life he’d lived. He was actually proud of getting old.”
“Well, Pops, look on the bright side.”
“There’s a bright side to this?”
“Yeah,” Brad grinned. “At least he’s not bald.”
I just growled at him in response.
Brad released me, gave me a palm slap on the right butt cheek, and said, “Well, just try to forget about it. And hurry up and get dressed. I’ll get the boys out of bed and start breakfast. Oh, and don’t forget you’ve got to take Justin for a new pair of shoes at noon, unless you want me to take him.”
I sighed again. “No, I’ll take him. What in hell does he do to wear them out so fast?”
“He runs a couple of marathons a week on the track for starters,” Brad said.
I grimaced, and then I said, “And who in hell spends two hundred bucks on a pair of sneakers?”
Brad gave me another kiss on my cheek and said, “We do, Pops, because our boy needs them. Cross country running and long races don’t come cheap.” He put the fingers of his left hand on my chin and turned my face toward him. He gave me a kiss on the lips, and then he walked back into the bedroom to finish getting dressed.
My kids were growing up way too fast. I wanted to cry. “I hate getting old,” I said quietly to an empty room. I was the only one to hear me say it.
I took one last look at myself in the mirror and turned away. Grey worked for Nathan. It always had. It made him look debonair. It didn’t work for me at all. It only made me look old.
Where had the time gone? ‘Grandpa’. I was going to be a grandpa. My father was a grandpa. Brad’s father was a grandpa. In a few months, I’d be one, too. I wanted to cry even more. My little Sweetheart had grown up and she had left home to embark on her new life as a wife and soon-to-be mother to my first grandchild. My grandchild. I was going to be a grandfather, and it terrified me that I already looked like one.
Lindsay had married Daniel, of course. They never looked beyond each other for anyone else from the day I had met Andrew on the soccer field and given him a ride home so long ago. For both of them, there could be no one else. I had fond memories of their budding romance, their growing relationship, and ultimately their marriage. I had actually been happy watching my Sweetheart growing into a woman. I watched her love for Daniel and his love for her grow right along with them, from their first date when Lindsay was so terrified that Daniel wouldn’t like her to their first ‘alone’ date with each other to the prom and parties, to holidays spent together.
There was little doubt that Lindsay was her mother’s daughter and even less doubt that Daniel was his father’s son, at least physically. He resembled his mother facially, but his body had filled out thanks to his father’s genes. He’d gone from a slender, gangly boy with long legs to a fit young man with solid muscles and ginger hair on his chest when puberty and hormones kicked in. He’s recently let his facial hair grow in and it looked great, especially now that it’s grown long enough that he can trim.
Lindsay was now almost as tall as I am and just about as slim as I am. There are no muffin tops on her, and the only belly bulge she carries is the one made by the baby inside her. She’d cut her hair shorter in her mid-teens and hasn’t let it grow out again since then. Along with my limited help, Brad and her two grandmothers had taught her to become a fairly descent cook and baker. She certainly reached a level a few steps above me. She even managed to roast the turkey for her last Christmas with us, complete with her homemade stuffing and homemade cranberries.
She still kept up with her needlework and had taken up knitting and crocheting as well with help from Terry and her grandparents. She could knit, but preferred to crochet. She’s already made several blankets for the baby and has been spending her spare time making baby clothes. Although the colours are gender neutral, she’s already told me it’s a girl. Like Mom and Dad, my first grandchild is going to be a granddaughter.
I like Daniel. I always had, but as he became more involved with my daughter and with our family, we more or less adopted him as a son and I grew to love him even before he and Lindsay had become engaged. He’d been calling both of us ‘Dad’ for a year or two already and only called us by name when it would not be clear to us which dad he was talking to. Brad offered him a job at Baie Dankie after he graduated high school, but Daniel turned him down. “Thanks, Dad,” he said, “but I need to do it on my own.” He currently has a job at a building supply store which he got all on his own. He’s quite happy there and his only involvement with Baie Dankie was selling supplies to Brad.
Lindsay wasn’t as proud as that. She wasn’t opposed to a bit of nepotism. She had worked her way through school taking courses that would help her in the offices of Baie Dankie Landscaping. She’s still working there, even just a few months from her due date. Still, she had made plans to take a year off work to tend to the baby and then Terry would take over when she was at work.
You might remember Terry. She’s had a little experience taking care of children. When she’s not taking care of Tom Kent, she offers certified child care in her home. She never has more than three children at any one time in her home, but she has more than three clients. Some of them are half-days. Tom is still a teacher, but he has taken a new position teaching history in high school. The extra pay is good, but, as he once said, “Teaching history to teens is far more rewarding than teaching fingerpainting and the ABCs to children.”
They had been married a few years ago and, of course, Lindsay and the boys had all been part of the bridal party. I was involved as well. I had the pleasure of giving her away in place of her father who was unable to travel due to health concerns. He was, in fact, in hospital. Her mother attended, though, and I held a cell phone with her father on video. He, too, could see everything that was going on and, when the pastor asked who gave the bride away, there were tears in Terry’s eyes and a waver in her father’s voice when he said, “I do.” I stepped back then, but was allowed to stay close so her father could see and hear everything. To be completely honest, I felt as though I had really lost a daughter and had just given her away myself. Terry was as close to being family without having the papers to prove it.
My real daughter had waited until after both she and Daniel had graduated high school before promises were made and a ring was slipped onto her finger. She had been so excited when she told me.
“Dad!” she called out as she knocked on our bedroom door. “Daddy, wake up!”
It was after midnight and I would have been panicked if I hadn’t heard the excitement in her voice. That and the fact that it had been a long time since she had called me ‘Daddy’. “Just a second, Sweetheart,” I called back as I turned on the table lamp. Brad and I scrambled out of bed and slipped into some underwear and our bathrobes before crossing the carpeted floor to the door. I opened it and there was Lindsay, all smiles and face glowing. Daniel stood just behind her and off to her left.
Beyond her, a bedroom door opened and Justin appeared in the doorway. Jeremy appeared behind him. Lindsay followed my eyes. “Justin,” I said, “please close your robe.”
He looked down at himself and quickly wrapped the robe around him before tying it shut. “Sorry,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“It’s okay, guys,” Lindsay said. “Come on over. You can hear this, too.”
Justin looked back at his brother and then the two of them padded barefoot down the hall to stand beside Brad and me. “Sorry, Lindsay,” Justin said
“That’s okay,” she replied with a grin. “At least you were wearing underwear.”
“Yeah, that could have been humiliating for both of us,” Justin said.
“So, what’s this all about?” Jeremy asked.
All eyes turned to Lindsay, but I knew what she was going to say. She motioned Daniel forward to stand beside her. “Daniel asked me to marry him and I said yes.” She positively beamed with happiness as she held out her hand to show us the ring. “We’re engaged.”
“Oh, Sweetheart,” I said as I took her hand to look at the ring before pulling her into my arms to give her a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek. Brad shook Daniel’s hand. It was then that I noticed that my eyes were wet.
I held on, probably longer than I had thought I had until Jeremy’s voice brought me back to the present. “Hey, Dad,” he said, “Do we get a turn?”
I laughed nervously before releasing her and stepping to the right to congratulate Daniel. I held out my hand and he took it in his. After one shake, I pulled him into a one-armed hug, wrapping my left arm over his shoulder and patting him on the back. “Welcome to the family, son.”
“Thanks, Dad,” he said back. And then he chuckled and smiled as we separated. “I’ll be able to call you that for real, won’t I?”
I smiled back and said, “It won’t change the fact that I’ve felt like I’ve been your father for a long time, Daniel.” I gave him another quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. When we broke apart the second time, I said, “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to hug my daughter again.”
I had been so proud to walk her down the aisle the day she married Daniel. She had grown into a beautiful young woman and Daniel had grown into a handsome young man. They made a stunning couple. Lindsay was wearing a rather simple but charming gown. She wore a ring of daisies in her hair rather than wearing a veil and train. When we reached our place at the front of the church, Lindsay faced Daniel and I stood beside her. I looked at him. His teary eyes were locked on Lindsay and he had a nervous but joyful smile on his face. He sucked in a huge breath that threatened to pop a few buttons on his vest, but it relaxed him enough to prevent him from falling down. Lindsay had made an excellent choice.
The minister began the ceremony. I listened carefully, ready to catch my daughter if nerves got to her until I heard the minister say, “Who gives this woman to this man?”
“I do,” I said, and then, with a final look at my daughter, I turned and found my place in the front pew between Mom and Brad. At our wedding, Justin and Jeremy had been our ring bearers. At Lindsay’s wedding, they were her ushers. I saw them standing on either side of the single door at the back before I took my seat. I was almost as proud of them as I was of Lindsay.
Mom and Dad sat to my right. Warren and Bill sat beside them. John and Bernice sat to Brad’s left. In the pew behind me sat Nathan and Bill, Brook and David, and Terry and Tom Kent. Warren bawled his eyes out right along with Mom and Bernice. That day, his Princess became a Queen, at least for a day.
Daniel’s parents were there, of course, bursting with pride for their son and full of happiness and tears. Dan Phillips had finally accepted my relationship with Brad and he and Tilly had become good friends of ours. They had no problem with our friends, either. They had spent many summer afternoons at our place splashing around in our backyard swimming pool and they allowed Daniel to come and go whenever he wanted as long as he was home by his curfew, at least until he was old enough to set his own bedtime. I knew my daughter was safe with Daniel’s parents and they knew we’d take care of Daniel as if he were our own son.
Connie was there as well, accompanied by her husband, Amos. They had been invited by Lindsay herself. Just after her sixteenth birthday, my daughter had asked me about her mother and, as I had promised Connie, I was forthright and open to her. I showed her every Email Connie had sent to me, every photo. I showed her everything and told her all about the phone calls we had had together. We had talked for long hours over many days about her mother, Lindsay and I, before she’d decided she wanted to get in touch with her. Lindsay believed me when I told tell that her mother had changed, that she wasn’t the same person she had seen that last time in court. I told her she worked in a grocery store that her new husband owned. We made plans to phone Connie. Lindsay placed the call and her mother picked up on the first ring. She had been sitting right next to the phone. After Lindsay’s first words, “Hi, Mom,” Connie was completely incoherent and had cried for almost the first ten minutes before she calmed down enough so she could speak.
Over time, Lindsay had let her mother back into her life, at least on a small, long-distance scale. By the time her wedding rolled around, the wounds had been mended enough for Lindsay to invite her and her husband to the ceremony and reception. When they met that Thursday before the wedding at the airport, it was the first time Lindsay had seen her mother since the day Connie had flipped out in court and, ultimately, had signed over all her parental rights to me. At Connie’s request, I still hold all parental rights to our daughter. Connie is still Lindsay’s mother biologically, but that’s as far it will go unless Lindsay decides some day that she wants to give back the rights to Connie and allow her to become a mother again.
That night, my daughter moved out of our home. When she came back from her honeymoon three days later, she moved into her own.
Virtually everybody who attended the wedding, including Daniel, his parents and our parents, and even Lindsay’s Matron of Honour, everybody, in fact, except for me, Brad, and Lindsay herself, do not know this secret. They are learning about it now just as you are.
Lindsay had a very large, beautiful, colourful bridal bouquet, but it was a special bouquet, designed and created by a local floral shop which took on the very special challenge. Hidden in a small pocket in back of the bouquet, carried against her chest, was Lindsay’s cherished bouquet she had caught at my wedding to Brad – the one David had risked his safety to rescue from the shelf in the collapsing kitchen of our burned-out house. The oddly-shaped bouquet she had tossed over her shoulder was caught by one of her best friends from school. Her special bouquet is still carefully preserved and on proud display in a glass cabinet in her home.
* * * * *
I finished drying myself in our bathroom – the one with the shower big enough to pitch a tent in - and stepped into the bedroom to get dressed for work. Brad was still there, doing up his blue work pants. Otherwise, he was completely dressed except for his work boots. He waited until I’d pulled out the clothes I’d wear that day and had laid them out on the bed before he took me in his arms to give me a hug and a kiss on the lips. “I’ll go start breakfast,” he said. “Pancakes or bacon and eggs?”
“Whichever the boys want,” I said.
He gave me another kiss and said, “Love ya, Pops. Don’t be long.”
As I got dressed, I heard Brad knock on Justin’s door. “Justin,” I heard him say, “time to get up.” I heard a grumbling voice that said, “Gmerrfumorkal,” or something very close to that. A few moments later, I heard another knock. “Jeremy.”
“I’m awake, Dad,” came Jeremy’s muffled voice. “Be right down.”
I could hear Brad going downstairs and then Jeremy coming out and following him down. I was putting on my socks when I heard Justin’s door opening and the unmistakable sound of bare feet on the laminated hallway floor. I didn’t hear the door close but, the familiar splashing in the toilet bowl could be heard followed by the flush. And then I heard his bare feet in the hallway again.
“Wash your hands!” I called out.
There was some under-the-breath cursing, but Justin returned to the bathroom to do what I had told him to do.
I pulled on my pants as Justin finished and headed downstairs for breakfast. I followed as soon as I had fastened my pants and put on my shoes. When I got to the kitchen, Brad was standing at the stove making pancakes on the electric griddle. Jeremy was at his side, helping. Justin was standing with his ankles crossed, resting his backside against the centre island and facing the den where I was. His eyes were glued to his phone. He was wearing only a pair of light-coloured bikini briefs which did nothing to hide his obvious state of arousal.
“Justin,” I said as I walked up the steps to the kitchen, “go put on some pants.”
Without looking up from his phone, Justin replied, “After breakfast, Dad. I’m starved.”
“Now, Justin.”
He looked up at me. “Why?”
I looked down at his crotch. “It should be obvious.”
Justin looked down as well before looking back up into my eyes. “What’s the big deal? You’ve seen it before.”
“Don’t be sassy, Justin. I don’t want to have to look at that when I’m eating breakfast.”
“I’m not being sassy, Dad,” he said, uncrossing his ankles and standing upright. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset. This is nothing new.”
“What’s not to understand about you flaunting yourself like that, young man?”
“I’m not flaunting, Dad. I’ve been coming to breakfast like this since Lindsay moved out. What’s the problem?”
“The problem, Justin Mathew Jayden,” I said sternly, “is that it’s rude to walk around the house in that condition, especially at breakfast!”
“Oh, I see,” he said accusingly. “It’s not a problem when Dad does it, but it’s a big problem when I do it!”
“That’s different and you know it!” I told him. “Sometimes it just happens to him.”
Justin actually grabbed his crotch. “Well,
this just happened, Dad!” He pulled his hand away again and balled it into an angry fist. “I didn’t make it do that, and neither does Dad! It just happened!”
“Don’t you give me any of your back talk!” I said as I took a step toward him.
“Ted!” Brad’s powerful voice boomed out and forced its way into my brain, stopping me in my tracks.
I turned to look at him and shouted. “What!?”
Brad stepped behind Justin and wrapped his arms over Justin’s chest and pulling him protectively against him. The back of Justin’s head rested against Brad’s chin. “Justin is right.” His voice was calm, but I could see the warning in his face. If I touched Justin in anger, I would have Brad to deal with and I knew he wouldn’t pull any punches trying to stop me. I was a provider, but Brad has always been the boys’ protector even before he adopted them. He rarely intervened unless the boys’ safety was in question and, even though he has never hit me, I knew he would deck me long before I could hurt one of our sons.
“What in hell do you mean ‘he’s right’!?” I shouted, my voice ringing throughout the room.
“Look,” he explained. “From the instant our sons set foot in this house, we have taught them that this family is normal, that there’s nothing wrong with you and me being in love with each other and getting married and all of us being a family. We taught them that there is nothing about our family and our bodies that we should be ashamed of, and there’s nothing about their bodies for them to be ashamed of, either. The only limits we ever put on them was inappropriateness. For Justin, this has been appropriate since Lindsay moved out. You’ve never made a big deal of us walking around in Justin’s condition, especially me. They’ve grown up thinking that it’s normal for it to happen, and now you’re telling your son that it’s suddenly something for him to be ashamed of and he should cover it up.”
“I’m not doing that,” I told him.
Jeremy, who had moved to stand beside his father, said, “Yes, you are, Dad.” I looked at him Jeremy rarely spoke out to me, but when he did, he usually had something worth listening to. I wisely kept my mouth shut and listened. “We’ve seen both you with erections since we were kids, most times when you had something on, but sometimes when you didn’t. We didn’t understand why they were like that, but we didn’t care because you didn’t make a fuss about them. You never tried to hide them from us. You just carried on as if it was for them to be that way, and now that we’re older, we’ve learnt for ourselves that it’s normal for us as much as it is for you. You and Dad weren’t showing off when we saw you like that, and neither is Justin. You must remember how Justin and I used to love running around in our underwear when we were kids. I still remember. We did it because we saw you do it. It made us feel grown up, like you and Dad. I grew out of it. Justin didn’t, and you didn’t care until today. If erections are normal for you and Dad, they should be normal for my brother, too. It’s not right for you to punish him for something you and Dad have been doing all of our lives.”
It’s rare when Jeremy stands up for his brother and it even rarer when my sons teach me a lesson. I learned a big one that day. They were still my little boys in my head, but in big boys’ bodies. I was treating Justin as the little boy I wanted him to be and not as the growing young man he is. I knew he hated wearing pants in the house. He always had. But at least he had waited until Lindsay moved out before it became common practice for him. I’d seen him a number of times in his underwear with erections. I’ve seen him stark naked at times. I’ve even accidentally walked in on him in his most intimate moments when I thought he was somewhere else. I never reprimanded him for it. I would simply excuse myself and back out of the room. Both he and his brother quickly learned that it wasn’t something they would bet in trouble for doing and I quickly learned to follow one of my own rules and to knock first and wait until invited in whenever the door was closed.
Jeremy was right, though. It was all part of being a boy and it had never bothered me as much as it did that morning. If I hadn’t been in such a shitty mood, I wouldn’t have said anything about it at all. I was just feeling so damned old and my babies were just becoming too damned grown up. My life was slipping past far too fast for me to keep up, and so were theirs. I could never have imagined this.
I beckoned them to me. Brad let Justin go and returned to the stove. The stood beside each other, throwing one arm around me and the other around their brother. When they were kids, they barely warmed my legs when they wrapped their arms around me. Now they were warming me all the way up to my chest. I hugged my sons close to me and bent down to kiss their hair. My eyes were full of tears.
“I’m sorry, boys,” I said. “Especially you, Justin. I was wrong. Very wrong. I have only one excuse for the way I acted and it’s a stupid one. I feel old today and it’s scaring me, and now both of you’re so grown up. A few months ago, you turned fifteen and next year you’ll have your driving permits. Your sister is about to make me a grandfather and my hair is turning grey faster than I can pull them out. I just feel so old today and I hate the idea of you not being my little boys anymore. I took it out on you. I just don’t want you to grow up.”
“If we could stop growing, Dad,” Justin said with deep sincerity, “we would.”
I looked at them one at a time and said, “I know you would. It’s just not an easy thing for a father to watch happen,” I gave them another powerful and loving hug. “Are you too grown up to get a kiss from your old man? A real kiss on the lips instead of the cheek?”
Justin looked up at me and smiled. “I hope I never grow up that much, Dad. I like your kisses.”
“I do, too,” Jeremy added.
They stretched up one at a time and I bent down to meet their lips. I gave them one final hug before releasing them.
“Just don’t expect us to call you ‘Daddy’ anymore.” That was Jeremy. “We’re too grown up for that.”
Brad said, “Pancakes are ready.”
Jeremy went to help his father with the coffee and juice, but Justin still had his arms around me, hugging me. “Thanks, Dad,” he said quietly. “I’ll go put on some pants if you want me to.”
I pulled out of his hug and looked into his beautiful blue eyes. “No. If you’re not ashamed walking around like that, then I shouldn’t be, either. It’s what we taught you. If I ever try to do something stupid like this again, you remind me what your brother said. Promise?”
“Promise. I love you, Dad.”
I gave him another hug. “I love you, too, Justin.” I released him one final time and, with my hand on his back, led him to the dining nook. He slid onto the bench and, before I could slide in beside him, he asked, “Oh, can you grab my phone, please?”
“No,” I said and settled into my spot for breakfast.
The sight of them sitting at the table across from each other, I could see how much they were still identical twins, but I could also see how much they weren’t. They had always had different personalities, but they had always tried to be exactly the same as the other, at least as far as appearance was concerned. They had always wanted to be dressed the same and always wore matching outfits. Even though their preferences in toys differed greatly, there was an enormous connection between them, and that connection still exists and it is still as baffling as it was when they were four years of. When Justin was nine, he fell off his bike and broke his arm. He had been trying to avoid hitting a squirrel running across the street in front of him. Jeremy felt just as much pain as his brother and it took a lot to convince him that he didn’t need a cast like Justin had. There had been an equally strong dependence on each other, especially Jeremy’s dependence on his brother when they were younger. That was the biggest thing which had changed when they grew up. Jeremy no longer depended on Justin, at least not the way he did when they were younger. They depended on each other in an independent sort of way, each watching out for the other.
They had been into sports when they were kids – soccer and hockey mostly – and Justin had kept up with both, but, as they grew up, Jeremy lost interest in soccer. His brother was the runner and Jeremy just couldn’t keep up. That’s why Justin excelled at track, ultimately concentrating on the distance events and, especially, cross country. He loved running. On the track, the taller guys had a vast advantage over him. He had to move his legs a lot more often than they did, but he always managed to keep up with the pack and hold his own. But in the wilderness, the tables were turned. Justin’s height was a great advantage. His lower centre of gravity and incredible stamina helped him tear up terrain that the taller boys often struggled with. He could practically turn himself in midair and drop to the ground facing in the direction he wanted to go. Justin loved to run. He lived for it, and his younger brother was quite content to let him do it.
When puberty struck, the twins went through a growth spurt that left their Uncle David tiling his head back to look them in the eye. There was still a bit more growing ahead of both of them according to their doctor, but he still told them that it wouldn’t be much. They were pretty-much at their adult height. “If you’re planning on being top scorers on your college basketball teams, forget it,” he said with an encouraging smile. “It’s not going to happen.” Still, they never let their height (or lack thereof) get in the way of life and I never heard them complain. They did, however, start boasting that they were now taller than Harry Potter. Sure, it was the thickness of a fingernail taller, but they were still taller.
Whereas I was slim with no muscle tone to speak of and more belly bulge than I cared to admit to, Brad was a mesomorph with good muscle tone, broad shoulders and chest, wide hips, and strong legs. Justin and Jeremy were somewhere in between, but leaning rather heavily in Brad’s directions David was more like me but with our sons’ bulk.
It was also during puberty that their lives finally separated them from being identical twins to being just twins, taking different directions entirely. Their clothing styles changed with Justin taking a more modern tack, favouring tight jeans and tight, colourful T-shirts that accentuated his physique. In the warmer weather, the jeans became cut-off shorts and the T-shirts became sleeveless. Sneakers were his chosen footwear, and they were usually loud and colourful. He was easy to find on the track.
His haircut complimented his clothes, or the other way around. Each complimented the other. His hair had darkened considerably as he grew up, turning from blond to a damp beach sand hue, but he insisted upon having blond highlights throughout. He kept it neatly trimmed and layered at the sides and back with longer hair layering up on top. He combed that from front to back so it stood up in a jaunty, carefree, easy-going manner, looking like mini mountain peaks. Justin was as beautiful in his teens as he was as a child, but it was a much more mature beauty. (I’m a proud father. I can say he’s beautiful and get away with it.)
Like his brother, Justin had a natural and remarkably well-developed body toned by years of hockey, soccer, and track. If there was one thing that separated him from his brother, it was his legs and buttocks, all more fully developed and far more powerful. Jeremy once told me and Brad that Justin usually didn’t wear a Jersey during training at school and that the girls would gather in the stands to watch him run. I began to notice that when we went to watch him at his meets. It’s interesting what you hear when people around you don’t know who you are. The girls enjoyed rating backsides and, apparently, Justin was right up there in ‘Best Boy Booty’ list. The girls (and some of the guys, I’m sure) enjoyed watching his butt cheeks jouncing up and down in rhythm with every stride he took. I wonder how envious of me they would be if they knew that I got to see it virtually every day?
Justin has one more thing which differentiates him from his brother: a tattoo. It’s not a big one – no larger than my thumb - and you have to be close to him to see what it is. A T-shirt would hide it. A jersey would reveal it. On the upper portion of his right deltoid is a black running shoe with expanding blue and red bands running from the toe to the heel. The sole is yellow. Orange and red flames, highlighted with yellow streaks, shoot out of the back of the shoe. Beneath the shoe is a scroll on which is written in two lines:: ‘Keep Running’ in connected script. It is the only tattoo in the family and he got it with my blessing and my Visa card.
Whereas Justin had a well-developed body from years on the track and working out in the school gym, Jeremy was just as well developed, but his strength was gained from many hours of helping his father load and unload potting soil, topsoil, gravel, sand, concrete blocks, stones, lumber, and anything else that was needed on the landscaping sites. He could whoop Justin’s ass in an arm wrestle and could even give his dad a run for his money. I didn’t have a chance against him. I knew I’d lose before we even clasped hands and I knew I couldn’t even budge his arm if I used both hands. The only time I ever won was when he let me win.
Jeremy was quite adept at driving a forklift and deftly moved pallets of materials around the supply yard at Baie Dankie. He knew how to work a backhoe and a Bobcat, but wasn’t allowed to do anything more than move them from one place to another at the Baie Dankie depot. When he’s old enough to drive them, he’ll be ready. His dream has always been to work with his father and to do everything his father could do. Whenever Brad was working in our gardens or our parents’ gardens, Jeremy was with if he wasn’t in school. His ambitions moved in completely different directions than his Justin’s. Jeremy gained both Brad’s and my respect and, even though he didn’t need to, he worked very hard to make us proud of him. We couldn’t have been more proud than we already were.
Jeremy had taken to a more conservative line of clothing. He preferred to follow in his father’s footsteps, tending toward looser T-shirts and jeans than his brother wore, but also wore more solid- and plain- coloured slacks, shorts, pants, and button-up shirts. He wore sneakers as well, but more regular colours, styles, and prices. He certainly wasn’t flashy and tried to blend in with the crowd as much as possible, unlike his brother who preferred to stand out in it. Jeremy was happy to leave the flash to his brother and stick with his earth tones.
His hair, though the same colour as Justin’s (except for the blond hightlights), was considerably longer on both the sides and the back, actually falling to his ears on the sides and riding his shirt collar at the back. It was much longer on top and he parted it on the right, combing it forward and to the left over his forehead in a traditional style. It added a whole new dimension to his face, a much more mature look than his brother’s. They were both charmingly good-looking in their own individual ways. Justin was happy-go-lucky. Jeremy was more buckle down and ‘get ‘er done’.
Except for hockey, which he still loved to play, Jeremy didn’t care for any other sports unless you consider bowling a sport. We all played a couple of times a month along with Lindsay and Daniel and, occasionally, with Daniel’s parents. Even after Lindsay moved out, our bowling tradition continued. Lindsay joins us now mostly as a spectator, at least until after the baby is born. As she once told me with a huge grin on her face after a game in which the only way I could get the ball to go where I wanted it to go would be to aim for the gutters, “It feels good to whoop your ass once in a while, Dad.” She emphasised that statement with a playful punch on my arm.
Jeremy was the brains and the brawn of the duo. His brother was the athlete. And neither of them had shown any interest whatsoever in gymnastics as my dreams had told me they would a decade ago. He had decided quite some time ago that learning new things was more fun than chasing a ball around a field and his favourite thing to learn about, of course, was botany. He loved plants and everything about them. His latest obsession was learning everything he could about creating new varieties and colours of plants, cross pollination, grafting, and other things I wouldn’t even pretend to understand. While the rest of us were watching a movie on television, Jeremy was reading. His new bedroom was full of plants and books about them. After Lindsay had moved out, Jeremy had asked us if he could move in. Of course, we said ‘yes’. His Uncle Nathan was only too happy to come over and help his godson paint and decorate the room in the nature colours Jeremy wanted. His two grandfathers had built shelves and planter and stands and anything else that their grandson wanted or needed to feed his hobby.
He loved spending time with his Oupa, helping him in the gardens and learning everything his grandfather was willing to teach him. He would spend entire weekends there. We would drop him off in Maple Grove on Friday night and go back on Sunday after supper to pick him up. This would ultimately lead to one of Jeremy’s greatest achievements which I will get to in a moment or two.
There were plants everywhere in our house. Not only had he and Brad landscaped the yards surrounding the house, they had set potted houseplants around the inside and large planters on the balcony off our bedroom. Plants and small conifers lined the inside of the privacy fence there, set between the LED lights which had been inset around the perimeter into the composite decking boards. Inside, Jeremy had even created an indoor and outdoor herb garden for us and there was a tree growing in the den near the patio doors that I can’t even tell you the name of. Jeremy tended to them every day after school. Brad, of course, helped him out when he could but it was, in the end, Jeremy’s hobby, and Brad so proud of his dedication to it. I was proud, too, of course, but not as much as Brad. I suspect that the look I see on Brad’s face when he looks at Jeremy is pretty much the same as the look on my face when I look at Justin.
Jeremy had shelves of plants. Justin had shelves of trophies.
But Jeremy’s biggest accomplishment by far had to be something that I had never managed to accomplish in all my 40-plus years: he had learnt to talk to my father in Afrikaans, and I mean really ‘talk’. He and Dad could hold entire conversations that only Mom could completely understand and join in. I picked up bits and pieces here and there, as did Justin and Brad, but we could add little in return that wasn’t in English. Dad was truly ecstatic that he had passed on not only his heritage but his native language as well to his grandson, and Jeremy’s managed to suck it all in, process it, remember it, and put it to use like a native Afrikaner. Dad tried hard not to show it, but it was clear that he held a special place in his heart for Jeremy. The de Villiers name would probably continue through the twins, but Dad’s life, his native language, and his knowledge of gardening and life would continue living in Jeremy. Of all of us, Jeremy was the one to receive the vast majority of Dad’s legacy, and he was the one to give Dad his biggest joy in life.
I was proud of both my sons, but for vastly different reasons. As identical as they had been when they slept on our chests, they now had only their faces in common, and one of them still had that distinguishing little mark on his upper lip. I would have been blessed with just one of them, but I was more than doubly blessed with two of them.
* * * * *
Justin was waiting for me when I pulled up near the school and trotted toward the car. I bought a new car after the boys finally outgrew their car seats, but I kept the van to haul around the two sets of kit they needed. Two duffle bags stuffed with hockey equipment along with their sticks wouldn’t fit in the trunk of a car. I popped the lock and he yanked open the door and climbed into the passenger seat. Before fastening his seatbelt, he leaned across the console and puckered his lips. I met him halfway and gave him a kiss as his schoolmates walked past.
“What was that for?” I asked curiously.
“I don’t want you to forget what I taste like,” he said and he buckled in.
“That will never happen, but you have my permission to remind me from time to time.”
Fathers aren’t supposed to have favourites amongst their kids, but it was clear that Justin was the favourite twin, at least, and that’s only because he chose me to be his favourite father. Jeremy was a close second, but that’s only because he chose Brad. I think Jeremy got the better deal. I would have chosen Brad, too.
The tension of the pre-breakfast encounter was long forgotten and Justin was acting as if it had never happened. I felt terrible that I had treated him the way I had, that I had unintentionally humiliated him and made him look like a fool in front of his father and his brother, and all because I was feeling sorry for myself. I swore that I would do my best never to let it happen again.
“Aren’t you afraid of your schoolmates seeing you kiss me?” I asked as he was buckling up.
“I don’t care if they see me, Dad” he said. “It’s not my problem if the other guys are too fucked up – sorry, I mean too messed up to show their fathers how much they love them.”
“You can say ‘fucked up’ when it’s appropriate,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I hope I never get that fucked up in the head that I stop showing you. Hey, do you remember when me and Jeremy were kids and we’d sleep on you and Dad and we’d knock you up in the morning?” he asked.
I winced a bit at his grammar, but I let it pass. Instead, I glanced at him. He was grinning at me and I grinned back. “You got that one from your Ouma, didn’t you?”
“Yup.”
“How long have you been waiting to use it?”
“Oh, about three and a half years,” he said, and we both laughed. “Knock you up,” he said more to himself than to me. He was still chuckling at his joke. “That’s funny.”
We chatted a bit about getting ‘knocked up’ in the mornings and I actually found that I missed it as much as Justin did. I was also surprised at his admission of missing sleeping with me and sometimes wishing he wasn’t too big to still do it. I missed it, too. It was one of my fondest memories of him when he was a little boy and needed to sleep with me, probably to make sure I wouldn’t go away when he when he was asleep. Justin suddenly asked, “Did you ever regret adopting us, Dad?”
“Not for a single bless-ed second, Justin,” I answered. “Don’t ever think I did. Not even once. My only regret would have been that I never had the chance. The moment I saw you playing on the floor, I knew I needed you.”
“We needed you, too, you know,” he said. “Both me and Jeremy knew it as soon as we saw you in the window.”
“It was a mirror, Justin,” I told him. “You couldn’t see through it.”
“We could,” he explained. “You looked speckled, but we could see you, and we could see Dad and that lady, too. We saw you wave at us. Honest.”
“I believe that, Justin. I always have. I can’t explain it, but I’ve always believed it. You know your father was adopted, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “He told Jeremy a few years ago and Jeremy told me. It couldn’t have been easy for you,” he continued. “With me and Jeremy, I mean. We must have been quite a handful, and you had to buy two of everything for us.”
“And I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, my Sonskyn.” I glanced at him briefly. He was twisted in his seat so he could look at me. “Don’t ever think that I have ever regretted spending a single penny on you, and that goes for your other father as well. Brad loves you and Jeremy just as much as I do.”
Justin was quiet for a minute or so and then said, “I’m glad he didn’t make you choose between him and us.”
I looked at him as I said, “If he did, you would have only one father now.”
Justin smiled at me and then settled back into his seat.
“I don’t know many other fathers who would spend over two hundred bucks on a pair of running shoes,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the crap sneakers some of the fathers pawn off on their kids. I’m not talking about the fathers that can barely afford it. I’m talking about fathers who would rather spend the money on golf memberships and booze or drugs than their kids.”
“Well, you lucked out picking me then, didn’t you?” I told him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Justin turn his head. “I love you, Dad,” he said. “And I’d pick you again in a heartbeat.”
I would have answered him but I was too busy trying to swallow the lump that was growing in my throat.
At the sporting goods store, I sat in one of the chairs in the shoe department. There were sets of four seats set all along the aisle facing in alternate directions. Justin busied himself looking for a pair of shoes along with a young, female clerk with the name ‘Tina’ engraved on her nametag. She was helping him find what he wanted. He tried several pairs, but his eyes kept going to a pair on the top shelf. At one point, he even rose up on his tiptoes to retrieve them. Back on the floor, he ran his fingers over the outside as if caressing them and stuck his hand inside. He was about to put them back when I told him, “Try them on.”
He turned to look at me. “They’re over three hundred bucks, Dad.”
“I don’t care,” I told him. “Try them on.”
A look of excitement came over his face as he turned to the young clerk. “Do you have these in my size?”
“Any particular colour?” she asked cheerfully.
“Anything that will make people put on sunglasses,” Justin grinned in reply. “I like bright.”
She smiled back and nodded her understanding “I’ll bring out the brightest we’ve got.”
“Thanks,” Justin said as he turned to replace the shoe on the top shelf. He came back to sit beside me. “Are you sure about this, Dad?”
“I’m sure, my Sonskyn,” I told him. “I don’t have any club fees to pay for. I don’t even like golf unless it’s knocking the ball through a hole in a windmill door.”
The clerk soon returned with four boxes and set them on the chair beside my son. She opened the top box and slipped the lid underneath before handing it to Justin. They were neon green.
“Wow,” Justin said. “They could see me from Mars in these.”
Tina picked up the second box and removed the lid. She didn’t even have time to slip the lid underneath before Justin shoved the green shoes into my lap and grabbed the box from the girl’s hands. “These ones,” he said. He pulled the shoes out of the box, face beaming and split with a great big smile.
They were bright sunshine yellow. The symbolism didn’t escape me.
He put them on, tied them up, and then stood up. “How do they feel?” I asked.
“Like my feet are wrapped in pillows, Dad.” He was still grinning from ear to ear. He looked at the sales clerk and asked, “Can I give ‘em a run?”
She glanced up and down the aisle. “Just in this aisle, okay?” she said. And if you see anyone, stop and walk.” She pulled a small scissors from a pouch at her waist and snipped the plastic tie.
Justin was off and running. I think Tina had expected him to jog up the aisle. I don’t think she was expecting a full-on sprint. But she didn’t stop him. He ran the longest distance to the end of the aisle first, skidded, turned before coming to a complete stop, and came running back. He passed us by entirely, doing the same skid and turn at the other end. He came running back, skidding to a halt in front of us. His breathing had barely changed from what it was when he’d been sitting beside me. If it had been me, I would have been bent over trying to catch my breath if I had even been able to make it to the end of the aisle in the first place.
“Can I wear them, Dad?” he asked hopefully.
I looked at the young lady. She smiled and said, “Sure.” She snipped the price tags off and handed them to me before slipping Justin’s old shoes into the box.
Justin was wearing his bright yellow ‘sonskyn’ shoes with the tags clipped off and now safely in my hand. We went to another aisle to look at the clothing. “What do you need?” I asked.
“I could use more running socks,” he said as he started grabbing four 3-packs off the bracket arms and handing them to me. “And a couple of sweat bands.” He grabbed a half dozen. “Oh, and some running undies. I’ll need a couple of packs of those.” He grabbed two packs of three, one pack in white, one in grey. He dumped the bands and briefs into my arms.
I looked at the photo on the front of the package. They were little more than an inverted triangle of material to hold the goodies, a knuckle’s worth of waistband at the top, and two thin elastic strips which frame the butt. “I thought you were going to buy underwear like I bought last time.”
“I read about these online and I want to try them out. They’re supposed to hold things in place but give me more freedom. I can flop around without chaffing. I hate chaffed nuts.”
“But there’s nothing covering your butt.”
“My butt doesn’t chafe, Dad,” he said. “When was the last time you had chaffed butt cheeks? Besides, these will be cooler. Speaking of which, I might as well get a couple of pairs of shorts and some jerseys, too, if it’s okay. I don’t have anything to match these shoes.”
“Sure,” I told him. “How are you set for K-tape?”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks,” he said. “I could use some. Can you grab me a couple of rolls?”
I went to pick up two rolls of his favourite kinesiology tape as he picked out some shorts and held them down near his shoes to check the colour coordination. The K-tape, of course, is the tape you see on athletes’ arms, legs, shoulders, and such, offering support and protection from injury and strain. I picked up a couple of rolls in vivid, eye-catching colours that I knew he liked. I thought it odd that his shorts and jerseys had to match his shoes, but the tape just had to look ‘cool’. When Justin was satisfied with his selection of three sets of matching shorts and jerseys, he said, “I’m going to try these on.”
“And I’ll just stand outside the change room holding onto your underwear for you,” I said as I followed him.
“Yeah, great, Dad” he said without looking back. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure, Son.” Not even a snuffle. A total waste of good sarcasm.
I did a quick tally in my head, including three coordinating sets of shorts and jerseys (there was no doubt in my mind that I would be buying all three), I winced a bit at the total, but then I thought about how much joy everything was already bringing to my son. Not a single penny would be wasted. I also thought about how grateful I was that Brad and I could afford it. There were many kids in school whose fathers couldn’t afford to see their children’s dreams come true. From a father’s point of view, I could understand how difficult it would be for them having to watch their children miss out. I was glad that I wasn’t one of them.
I stood there outside the curtained cubicle, listening to the rustling of clothes. I could hear clothes coming off and clothes being pulled on, then coming off again and another set being pulled on. This happened one more time when I heard the snap of elastic on bare skin and then Justin’s voice call out. “You there, Dad?”
“Yes, I’m here,” I told him, “still holding your underwear.” Again, the sarcasm eluded him.
Instead, he said, “Come in here a sec.”
I pushed through the curtain and found Justin standing there, surrounded by mirrors on three sides. His clothes and purchases had been dropped on a wooden bench against the back wall and he was dressed in yellow running shoes and blue everything else. He looked up at me, turned sideways, and twisted his head around so he could look over his shoulder at his prominent backside.
“Do these shorts make my ass look fat?”
If my hands hadn’t been full of his barely-there underwear, he would have received my response with a resounding smack on his left butt cheek which would have undoubtedly made my fingers tingle.
* * * * *
Justin was dressed in his jeans and T-shirts again along with his new yellow sneakers. I told him he could wear them today but had to keep them for the track after that. He did most of the talking on the way back to his school, flip-flopping back and forth between the pool party coming up at the weekend, a track meet he would be attending in a month or so, the one at his school last week, how disappointed the girls coming to the party were when they found out his dad wouldn’t be wearing a Speedo at the party, and the latest Star Wars movie. I listened up to the point of Brad in a Speedo. My mind wandered after that.
I pulled up in front of the school and Justin unbuckled, but I stopped him before he opened the door. He turned toward me to give me his attention.
“You know I would never have said the things I did this morning,” I told him, “if I wasn’t in such a bad mood.”
“I know, Dad. Just forget it.”
“No, I can’t, Son. I hate myself for humiliating you the way I did, especially in front of your father and brother.”
“Just forget about it, Dad,” he said. “It’s over and done with. I just didn’t think anyone cared.”
“We don’t,” I said. “I mean, I don’t. I’m just having a bad day.”
“I understand why you’re in such a bad mood, Dad. There’s a word for it, but I forget what it is.”
“Midlife crisis.”
“Yeah, that thing.”
“Do you really understand what it means?”
“Yeah. You wish you were my age again.”
“Not quite,” I said. “It would be nice to be your age and starting my life over again, but it’s more realising how old I’m getting and wishing I was younger than I am.”
“Oh,” he said, “got it.” He looked up at my hair. “Like using that stuff on television that guys put in their hair to get rid of the grey, or that guy with the stupid toupee that looks like he’s got a guinea pig sleeping on his head. You know – that fat guy who drives around in that bright red two-seater sports car that he can hardly get in and has thee Rap music blasting out of the speakers trying to act like he’s in his twenties. He looks like an idiot.”
I chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll never see me doing that, and I won’t be buying any of that hair colouring, either. I promised your dad that I wouldn’t. For some stupid reason, he likes it.”
“I know,” he said, smiling. “He told Jeremy and Jeremy told me.” And then he gave me a knowing wink and his smile turned into a wide grin. “Dad’s got the hots for you, Dad. You’re the reason his ‘sometimes it just happens’ things just happen. I think it’s neat that you still turn him on at your age. I wouldn’t worry about a midlife crisis if I were you. Dad’s lovin’ it.”
Two lesson’s in one day and I hadn’t even eaten lunch yet. Still, it didn’t make me feel much better about growing old.
“C’mere, Dad,” he said, holding out his arms to me. “I think you need a hug.” I did, and I fell into his open arms. “Don’t worry about getting old, Dad. You’ve still got a lot of life ahead of you. You have to save as much worry as you can for me and Jeremy, at least until we’re old enough to get out on our own.”
As much as I hated breaking up the hug, I did, and pushed him back, but I still held onto his arms. “The day I take my last breath is the day I stop worrying about you and your brother and your sister. Sorry, my Sonskyn, that’s just the way it works.”
Justin was silent for a long few seconds and I thought he was trying to think of something deeply profound to say. Instead, he grinned again and said, “Cool.” And then he pulled away from my grip and said, “Gotta run, Dad. I’ll be late for my next class.” Except for his new shoes, he left everything else with me and jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind him and trotting off down the sidewalk and across the grass lawn toward the front door of the school. I watched him until the huge wooden door closed completely behind him before driving away.
* * * * *
I stopped at the front desk where Sandy who, bless her heart, still worked with us, gave me my messages and phone calls and handed me another folder of a coding problem which had popped up while I was out with Justin.
I headed down the hall, scanning the messages and walking past my old office. I looked up briefly, smiling and nodding at Chelsea, the young lady sat at my old desk in my own swivel office chair and doing the job I used to do. She smiled back and added a wave. I continued to my office and sat at my desk. It had been mine for a few years now. This desk once had a drawer full of candy bars. Today, my boys would find nothing in it except papers and other office junk.
JD isn’t with us anymore. He hasn’t been since November of 2012. Just after our Thanksgiving in October that year, JD had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before we said goodbye to November, we were saying goodbye to JD. His illness, as horrible and devastating as it had been, was, thankfully, a short one. JD left us a mere shell of the man who had blessed us all with his caring and sincere friendship, the man who understood that family was more important than any job. I run the shop the same way he did. Family always came first.
I had been given the job temporarily when JD left us to begin treatment, but it became permanent when we discovered a few weeks later that JD would not be returning to us. None of us knew just how sick he was until Sandy came back from the hospital in early November and broke down in my arms. I truly felt honoured to have been given the opportunity to try to fill his shoes. I’m still working at it.
When I took over for JD, a programmer about my age had been moved up to take over for me but he failed to adapt to the extra pressures the job required and actually requested to be returned to his previous position where he could pass off a big problem to someone else rather than to have them passed to him. I took applications from programmers inside the shop who were interested and from programmers in the general public. Chelsea, who had joined the staff about a year before JD died, aced her interview and the three short programming problems I had presented to the applicants. I gave her the job and I’ve had no regrets. She rarely had to come to me for help.
I took a deep breath, settling down to work. It was, after all, this new position and salary that allowed me to spend $359.95 plus tax on a pair of sneakers for my son. It was best that I start making the money to pay for them.
I was still feeling miserable. I still felt so old. But it made me feel a bit better knowing that I had one son who wasn’t afraid to stand up for his brother, another son who wasn’t ashamed to hug and kiss his father in broad daylight, and, especially, that my Tiger still has the hots for me and it wasn’t just him trying to bring me out of my funk. I really was causing the hardons. I really turned him on, grey hair, belly bulge, love handles, and all.
End of Part 1
I love you and the way in which you make so many things real and accessible.
I bow before the wonder of the depth of character shining through your writing.
