Candid Family Portrait by E. S. O. Martin

Author:E. S. O. Martin [Martin, E. S. O.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Snow Goose Press

3

“I’m gonna get you!” the dad said in a growly voice as he stuck his arm into the play structure. His son shrieked with glee and shimmied away, delighted at being chased.

June smiled as she watched them. She had seen them once or twice before, and every time she felt a yearning in her core that took her breath away.

It wasn’t that the man was especially physically attractive. He had greasy hair and he was about forty pounds’ overweight. However, his sexiness was more in the way he knew exactly where to reach into the diaper bag for various items—as if he had packed it himself. Or in the way he walked with the open carrier dangling around his waist without tripping all over it or being self-conscious about it. Or how he would put his son in the carrier on his back with the practiced ease of someone who had done that motion thousands of times. Or in the caring, competent way he handled his son, tossing him into the air and bringing him in for a hug. The muscle memory of many hugs. Or the way he listened to his son—so intensely—as if his child’s opinions actually mattered to him. Or in the way he would laugh with his child like he was having a good time. This man wanted to be here. He wanted to be a dad. And in the joy in his face, it was obvious this man felt he was living his best life.

I have more in common with this man than I do with my own husband, June thought.

Somewhere along the way, Vince's and June's daily experiences had diverged to the point where they hardly understood each other. They would try to talk about their days, but it was like they were speaking a different language. Her experience of being home, alone with their child, had nothing in common with Vince’s daily life, which was mostly unchanged by becoming a father. June felt jealous that Vince got to have everything be the same, while she had fallen into this parallel universe of nap times, and baby talk, and strategically timed snacks to avoid a melt-down.

Vince just didn’t get her anymore. As her partner, he was the only person in their family who was supposed to understand her. But he didn’t.

June looked over to the multi-colored play structure where a dad was playing with his son.

She let the fantasy run, imagining herself walking up to him and kissing him, right there next to the tunnel slide. (The fantasy only worked if he was straight.) Maybe they would go over to each other’s houses for playdates, and begin a wild irresponsible affair while their children napped in the other room. They’d lie naked in bed, sipping apple-juice boxes through tiny straws and commiserate about how their working spouses didn’t understand them, just like in Tom Perrota’s Little Children.

June let the tape run all the way to the end, in her mind. What would happen next?

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