Page 15

TOM

I got to Sam and Kelsey’s house a little before five, and Crew met me at the door, throwing himself into my arms.

“Dada!”

“Hey, bud!”

I met Kelsey’s gaze, her tired eyes showing the exhaustion of an entire day with an active toddler. Her pregnancy had been good so far, but I had noticed her getting more tired lately.

“Where’s Sam tonight?” I asked.

“Seattle, he won’t be back until the day after tomorrow,” she said.

This is the part that sucked. Last year, Kelsey traveled with Sam to all of his away games.

Traveling with an infant was much easier than traveling with a toddler, so Kelsey had worked to minimize the impact on Crew as much as possible this year.

With another infant next season, I could see her traveling even less.

“Do you need anything before I go?” I asked, knowing Kelsey was surrounded by family and friends in Boston, but understood that even when I was exhausted, sending Crew back to Sam and Kelsey crushed me.

“No, I have plenty to do for the next few days. I have some design plans for the house in Concord that I have to review. I might have mentioned before that it needs some work. It was, well, more than a little bit dated. For some reason, the previous owners carpeted some of the walls. Removing the carpet caused damage to the drywall, and once that happened, we thought it would be a great time to remove those walls, all adding up to major changes to the existing plans,” Kelsey shrugged.

“I heard that you will be neighbors with Calliope’s parents,” I said before realizing that having lunch with Calliope this afternoon might not be appropriate.

I rushed to cover, “I was talking to her earlier today. She’s going to come by tonight to see Crew’s bedtime routine and get to know him a bit more. She mentioned it while we were making plans.”

“Interesting. Small world. And that is a great idea. I should have reached out to her, but I’ve been distracted. We made the right call hiring her, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around leaving him with someone outside our little unit.”

“Hey, buddy, do you have your monkey?”

“Des,” he answered, his version of the word yes.

We had committed to never have Crew need to pack a bag, but his stuffed monkey was one of a kind and the only thing he needed.

We did our best to have everything he needed at both homes so he never felt as if he were being shuffled between houses.

We also planned to let him decide where he stayed if he ever asked to make changes.

I dreaded the day when he picked one of us over the other.

Since we planned for him to start school in Boston when it was time, it was yet another reason for me to get my ass on the East Coast. I struggled to bring my mind back to the present.

I needed to stop getting distracted by maybes and potential pitfalls when I was with my son.

One step at a time, Tom. I silently reminded myself.

“Ready?” I asked Crew.

“Des Dada. Let’s go!”

“Give Mommy a hug before we go,” I reminded him as he threw himself into Kelsey, knocking her off balance for a quick second.

“Oof, easy, buddy.”

“Sowwy, Mama. I wove you.”

“Love you too,” she said, squeezing him before we left their home and headed for my rental.

Crew spent the drive telling me about his new favorite show and singing several of the songs from it.

I found a playlist on Spotify called “Kid’s Songs that SLAP” and mentally thanked whoever had created that list as I replaced my classic rock playlist with something Crew could sing along to.

My life this past year has been so far from what I had imagined when I signed my contract, but I never wanted anything different.

“Guess who is coming by tonight?” I asked Crew.

“Who, Dada?”

“Do you remember Calliope? She’s going to come over and have dinner and then read you a bedtime story,” I explained.

“Yah? I like Pee! She read Bluey?”

“Yeah, buddy. She can read you, Bluey. And then after that, we can video chat with Pops and Mama.” Calliope may as well jump right in; she’d have the book memorized by the second week with us.

“No Pops. He game,” Crew said sadly.

I thought we might still be able to catch Sam before his game on the West Coast. The three-hour time difference might give us enough time to surprise Crew before bed. I hated missing the bedtime call on game nights, so I always bent over backward to reach Sam at some point in the evening.

I had to circle the block twice to find parking since I hadn’t purchased a parking spot when I rented my apartment for the summer. I always found something, but as luck would have it, it was always a hike when I returned with Crew.

“You want to walk, buddy? Or piggyback?”

“Piddyback!” Crew yelled in excitement as he tried to unbuckle his belt. He’d been trying to do as much by himself as possible. He seemed to understand that Kelsey would have a baby soon and wanted to show off all the big boy things he could do; he had yet to master the car seat.

I finished unlatching the seat belt for him and leaned down so he could climb on my back like a monkey. “Okay, monkey. Let’s go.”