Armada

I am aiming, those first nights. For unswerving patience. For forgiveness of moods and missteps, his and mine. Is he ignoring chores? Finishing only fragments of schoolwork? Forgetting at the front door to remove sneakers? Well, he’s only a boy. Our home has shifted into a foreign space, new, jarring waves dazing us each hour we toss in bed.

Besides, my son promises to do better. So I buy the toy metal airplanes he’s pined for. Smiling, he removes from the box only the largest craft. Seeing nineteen other models nestled snugly in plastic casings calms me. The notion they would remain cradled in the container forever if we chose. He dutifully carts his shoes to the mat, the pair’s tips pointed, like mine, toward the door. I’m not wild about bartering in this manner, but the vortex we spin inside demands diversions to pull us out.

 

The next night I arrive home late, the neighbors’ barking dogs rattling me as I unlock the door—dogs that never see the insides of the homes they protect and never cease to let the block know. Quietly I remove my loafers. As my son’s room is lit only by a spine of moon, I fail to discern that all twenty toy airplanes have been removed from the container, all lying on his floor like jagged teeth.

When my bare feet step on the largest, I shriek. My son shrieks in turn.

Snapping on lights, I hop around on one foot, as if this will alleviate the pain in both, seething when I see his sneakers flanking his bedside ladder.

I’m incensed by his negligence. He’s incensed I woke him at midnight.

“Now I’ll never feel awake enough!” he complains. “Won’t be able to spell ‘persimmon’ right on tomorrow’s test.”

“You lacerated me!” I yell, pivoting to display the damage. “You’re talking about spelling tests? I’ll have to test for tetanus.”

“My room was light enough when you said you’d be home.”

Hobbling to his window, I work to summon flat, fatherly logic. My late return owes as much to the drinks I downed as it does to my heavy workload. But the pulsing pain claims my mind, so the rightness of his remark flits by. “You broke your promise, too.” I point at his sneakers. “Unremoved shoes invite shit and soil, bacteria and bugs, to nestle into carpet fibers. A lesson you should know.”

I confiscate one aircraft, contriving to chuck the toy down the grinding disposal unit, only he pleads, “I need all twenty. I need to figure out which is the one Mom will return in.”

Pulling my boy off his bed, I hug him tightly. Foolish, feverish blood pounds my chest, pounds my feet.

 

My boy deserves to close the book on this hard chapter. I don’t want him hoarding false hope. So when he first asked if his mother was lost, I answered, Only her ship for certain. Rescue missions for all those aboard her vessel were underway. Insisting aircraft were one clear hour from collecting and bringing her back. As a concession, I bought the toys. A thing about fog: it insists we invent each landscape it cloaks.

Each night I return from work later, dimmer from drink, finding his airplanes scattered in an even wider radius. Always wingtip/metal fang side up. It’s like dodging landmines, so I bid my goodnights from the doorway’s safe threshold.

One night, however, he entreats me to come inside, a soft request spoken into his pillow.

“Not until you clean this mess. I’m tired of stepping around sharp metal to hold you.”

“You would’ve never been hurt,” he refutes, “if you looked past your face once in a while.”

I kick the toy planes away to clear a walking path, snatch up a stray in my palm, and smash it against my son’s temple.

 

 

To read this story in its entirety, please purchase a copy of the print edition of Issue #23