Whatever she said sounded to me like, “Mommy, can I lead the universe?”
It could have been anything: Mommy, can I have a new purse? Mommy, can I be the first? Mommy, have you seen a balloon burst?
“What?” I asked, distracted and cranky. I was unloading the car, draped with backpacks and shopping bags and banana peels and empty water bottles, and the rest of the tremendous crap that fills my car every day. “You want to lead the universe?”
She thought for a moment, a grin spreading across her face.
“Yes,” she said, with a confidence that comes from being 5 years old. Or a megalomaniac. They’re kind of the same thing.
When we got into the house, Kai dropped his own backpack on the floor.
“That sounds scary, Ryan,” he said.
“What?”
“You want to leave the universe?”
“Sure,” she said, not missing a beat. “When I’m a grown-up.”
“But,” Kai protested, tears catching in his eyes and his voice. “I will miss you.”
Ryan stared at Kai, unsure. On the one hand, she probably hadn’t even asked to lead the universe, much less leave it. On the other hand, Kai falls all over himself to tell her how much she gets on his nerves.
“You could stay,” he said. “Mommy said I can stay here with her as long as I want. Just stay.”
This is true. The other day he asked me if he could live with me forever, and I said that he could. I haven't told Scott yet.
“Even when I’m a grown-up?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Just stay. Or I will miss you.”
He patted her head with an awkward flat hand.
“Okay,” she said, the way you do when you don’t really mean it. She can’t wait to grow up and fly the coop, though she hasn’t yet realized that means she can’t sleep in my bed every night.
“You should give Ryan a hug,” I suggested.
He did exactly that, holding her with both hands. It took incredible restraint for me not to lurch for my phone to take a picture, or to ask them to recreate it once I’d found it in the depths of my purse.
But I’m an opportunist nonetheless.
“I’d like a hug, too,” I said.
And I got one—a full-on two-armed squeeze with his face pressed into my belly.
And good lord. I wonder what Ryan really said?
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