with strangers around. He wasn’t sure how he would react, or how he was supposed to act.
Melissa rang from the front gate of the apartment complex and Tyler buzzed them in. He heard the knock at the door and stood up. He looked around his simple, mostly undecorated apartment to make sure it was presentable to a four-year-old, and to Melissa.
Tyler opened the door. Melissa wore a tropical print dress. His eyes were drawn to her tan neck. He remembered resting his head there. She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. Melissa smelled much the same as he remembered, like sandalwood. Tyler thought he could smell pot on her breath.
“You look good,” she said. “You can still break hearts. I bet the women here don’t mind having you around.”
Their gazes turned at the same time to Sammy, who was closely examining a Big Wheel outside an apartment two doors down from Tyler’s.
“Sammy, come meet Tyler. This is who I told you about. He’s your daddy. Remember what we talked about?”
Sammy lingered for a moment near the Big Wheel and then walked towards them.
Tyler felt a flush of his skin, like a first kiss or that moment when a girl he liked suddenly noticed him. That was the only feeling that came close to this. He felt Sammy’s eyes on him, but even more so he felt a stare from Melissa, a look that he could not understand.
He bent down and extended his hand. Sammy looked at him with a serious but calm face and shook it.
“So, Sammy, I’m Tyler. I’m really happy to meet you. I really am. I didn’t …”
“Can we come in?” Melissa asked.
“Yes, of course. Come on in. I got some juice and cookies for Sammy.”
Sammy part-hopped, part-jumped, part-walked in, and began to inspect the apartment. He saw Tyler’s guitars in their stands and walked over to one of them.
“Be careful with those, Sammy,” Melissa said.
“It’s okay. You can touch them if you’re careful,” Tyler said.
Sammy strummed one of the guitars and wiggled in response to the sound.
“Can you play something?” Sammy said, looking back at Tyler.
Tyler picked up the closest acoustic guitar and started to pick Blackbird by the Beatles.
Sammy smiled and Tyler smiled back.
“Do you like to draw?” Sammy asked, looking at Tyler.
Tyler stopped playing.
“Don’t get too excited, Tyler. Every three-year-old on the planet likes to draw,” Melissa said.
“I’m four,” Sammy said.
“Of course, I know, honey.”
“Yeah, I do like to draw,” Tyler said. “Hang on a second and I’ll get some paper and pencils and we can both draw.”
Tyler left the room and returned with a wooden art case that he set on the floor and opened in front of Sammy. Sammy stared, transfixed at the dozens of colored pencils and the paper and the drawings that Tyler pulled out from the case.
“You’re a good draw-er,” Sammy said.
Tyler opened up a drawing pad for Sammy.
“Do you like pencils, or crayons, or pastels …?”
“Yeah,” Sammy said and picked up a blue pencil.
A few minutes later, with the two of them engrossed in drawing, Melissa stood up.
“Hey, you two. I need to go to the pharmacy to get something, okay? I’ll let you two get acquainted. I’ll be back in a little while.”
As she closed the door, Tyler stopped drawing long enough to think that it was a little strange that she was leaving Sammy alone when he and Tyler had only just met.
They continued drawing. Later, Tyler made them both sandwiches, and then he played guitar again and he showed Sammy how to strum while he held the chords. Then they drew some more, taking turns finishing each other’s drawings.
“My mommy’s not coming back,” Sammy said calmly, his gaze on his drawing. His voice had an unusual weight for a four-year-old.
“Of course she is, but we’ll have fun until she does. And even after you and your mommy leave, you can come see me anytime you want and I’ll go see you too.”
“Nope, she’s not coming back.”
“I’m sure she is. Your mom probably just got delayed. I can call her.”
“Mommy told me she wasn’t coming back. Mommy said you were going to take care of me for a while,” Sammy said, still not looking up from what he was drawing.
Tyler had his mobile phone in his hand and was getting ready to dial her number. Sammy had looked up from his drawing now and was staring at him. Tyler was surprised at how calm Sammy was in stating that Melissa would not return. Tyler pulled up recent calls and dialed the number Melissa had used to call him. A message informed him that the number did not accept incoming calls. Tyler tried not to show any expression to Sammy as he called the number a second and a third and a fourth time. Then he texted a message to the number and immediately received a response: Error: invalid number.
They drew and watched TV until it was time for dinner. Tyler suggested they go out for dinner and Sammy vigorously shook his head.
“I need my car seat,” Sammy said.
“Oh, yeah, of course. Well, I’ll tell you what. You sit in the back seat and we’ll put on your seat belt. I’ll drive slowly. I’m a policeman, so it’ll be okay just this once. I give you permission.”
Sammy nodded his head, apparently satisfied with this.
On their way back to Tyler’s apartment after dinner, Sammy was nearly falling asleep. As they walked inside, Tyler suggested he take a nap until Melissa came back.
The nap became a full night’s sleep. Tyler watched Sammy as the boy slept on his couch until after two in the morning. Then Tyler took off his own shirt and shoes and went to his bedroom and slept on top of the covers of his bed. It was about seven the next morning when he woke up and saw Sammy standing next to him in his bedroom.
“I told you she wasn’t coming back.”
“Hey,” Tyler said, his voice groggy. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Can I have some cereal?”
◆ ◆ ◆
With more than four years having passed since they had broken up, two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and both of them moving to new cities, Tyler had no other current phone numbers for Melissa. She had made it clear when she ended it that she didn’t want to stay in touch. She never told him where she had moved, although he thought it might have been the Bay Area in California.
