Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“I don’t want to slide,” Luke mumbled, afraid of both the slide and of Eric’s attempts to get him over the fear.

“Okay, we’ll build a sand castle together. Then we’ll come home for lunch with Mommy.”

It had worked. For the first time in a month since an incident with a brat who took Luke’s shovel, Luke agreed to go to the park with Eric. Eric knew now he had been wrong to lecture Luke to make a more vigorous defense of his possessions, that his speech had backfired, increasing Luke’s fear of the random world. Luke didn’t want to order the mess himself; he wanted it made safe.

Eric forced himself to talk in a cheerful, hearty voice while he carried Luke to the park on his shoulders, obliged to push the stroller with only one hand, the other grasping Luke’s plump, dangling leg. The sharp edge of Luke’s heels bruised Eric’s chest, Eric’s hand cramped from the tight grip he had to maintain on the stroller handle in order to steer straight, and his neck felt permanently dented by the relentless weight of Luke’s behind. But it had been worth it. When Luke began to sing the theme song of his favorite television show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , Eric hit upon the idea of explaining to Luke that the park and the streets and the strange people around them were Luke’s neighbors. This worked too. Luke arrived at the playground singing. He moved eagerly toward the swing area and, once on, asked to be pushed faster.

“How fast?” Eric asked.

“To the moon!” Luke answered.

“That’s fast,” Eric said, and sighed with relief.

Eric made his hand into a metronome and watched the back of his son loom and then recede. He listened to two mothers chat about their children’s moods and sleep habits as if their kids weren’t right there, swinging in the air. What do they think? Eric wondered. That the rush of wind in their children’s ears makes them deaf? He remembered his mother’s dismaying habit of discussing his school problems with her friends while he and his buddies played at their feet. Miriam insisted to Eric that he shouldn’t worry about his academic difficulties, but she talked of nothing else with her friends.

Well, that was all part of the garbage of his past, mistakes that he wasn’t going to repeat.

“Luke! Luke! Luke!” a sandy-haired two-year-old stood on a bench outside the swing area. He waved his fat little hands in the air, his broad mouth revealing a row of widely spaced teeth.

“Who’s that?” Eric asked.

“Oh,” Luke said, a touch of worry and excitement in his tone. “That’s Byerun.”

“Brian?”

“Bye! Run!” Luke’s voice was at once loud and restrained, like someone shouting through a closed door.

“Oh, Byron.” That was Luke’s friend, Eric realized, introduced to Luke by his soon-to-be-baby-sitter Pearl.

“Hello, Luke! Play with me! Luke! Play with me!” Byron jumped up and down on the bench joyfully. He looked so open, this kid with his tousled hair, big smile, and pug nose. Byron’s body, smaller and leaner than Luke’s, seemed to quake with energy. His presence was the ideal of boyhood: electric and sunny. Even the playground adults, battered daily by the happiness of children, took notice of Byron and smiled at his enthusiasm.

All at once, Eric felt afraid of Byron, envious of his parents, and proud of the fact that Luke was the focus of his attentions. “Do you want to get out of the swing?” he asked.

“Yes,” Luke mumbled, very low, ducking as he answered, as if he expected a refusal to be hurled at him.

He’s never been refused anything. Why is he so timid? Eric punched himself with the question.

“Play with me, Luke!” the happy Byron called. “Play with me!” Byron yearned.

Behind him, a dark Jewish yuppie appeared. She was dressed in L. L. Bean clothes and, at first glance, looked nothing like her son. Her hair was black and straight, and her deep-set eyes hid in a cave made darker by wide black circles of fatigue. Her face was long and dour, her mouth closed, her body still and enervated. But she had Byron’s bold look as she took in Eric and Luke, and when she spoke, she had Byron’s loud, confident tone: “Are you Luke?”

“That’s Luke!” Byron said. “Play with me, Luke! Play with me!”

“Yes.” Eric answered Byron’s mother for Luke, afraid that Luke would never do so. Eric hurried to get Luke out of the swing, influenced by Byron’s repeated chants. “I’m his daddy.”

“I’ve heard so much about Luke. My name is Diane.”

“Hi, I’m Eric.” Eric’s hands encased the box of Luke’s chest to lift up Luke, out of the swing, over the fence, down next to his friend. Eric could feel his son’s heart beat with the excitement of this encounter. That was a terrible relief — to know there was someone else Luke wanted to be with, that he had not inherited his mother’s hermitlike disdain for friendship — but there was also loss, both of his son and of control. He was letting the fluttering bird go, but to what?

Byron took Luke by the hand, like a lover, like a parent, and pulled him toward the sandbox. “We play, Luke,” Byron said.

And Luke spoke instantly, clearly and confidently as he would at home.“I have a shovel. And a pail. Daddy, can I have my shovel and pail?”

“Here they are,” Eric said.

“You speak so well,” Diane said to Luke, her compliment aggressive, almost acquisitive.

“I do too!” Byron said.

Luke, of course, lowered his head, away from the blinding light of being addressed by a stranger. “Come on,” Luke said to Byron.

Byron violently took Luke at his word. He grabbed Luke’s hand and hopped across the playground toward the sandbox. Byron pulled Luke so hard that he fell, nosing forward into sand like a helpless puppet.

Eric jumped forward. “Byron!” Diane called. “Don’t pull him like that!”

Eric reached Luke and lifted him to his feet. “Are you okay?”

Luke nodded.

“Play, Luke!” Byron called from the sandbox. Luke went toward him, in his slow, careful walk, distrustful of the earth.

“How old is Luke?” Diane asked the moment Eric returned.

“Two years two months.”

“Six weeks younger than Byron. He speaks really well. Did he start talking early?”

“About nine months.”

“Really? I’ve heard a few girls speak that well at his age. But no boys. I thought Byron was the most precocious, but Luke makes real sentences.”

Eric was pleased she had noticed, and surprised she had so quickly, from merely one exchange. “From what I heard Byron speaks well,” Eric said.

“Yeah, I thought he was the best. But Francine had told me that Luke was amazing.”

“Well, he likes to talk, although he’s shy. But his mother and he have long, long conversations. Even when he was a little infant, it would calm him if we talked to him.”

“Byron won’t stand still long enough to have a conversation.”

Eric sat down on the bench next to Diane. She didn’t have the small pillow of maternal belly; her thighs looked lean; even her posture, despite the exhaustion in her face, suggested girlish energy. “Look at them!” Eric said in a reflex of surprise when he glanced at the sandbox.

Luke and Byron were digging a hole together. Their bowed, concentrated heads almost touched, and even from that distance, the music of their voices — Byron’s, piercing, upper register, Luke’s, low and sweet and melodious — could be heard as one song played harmoniously by two distinct instruments. “Isn’t that great?” Diane agreed. “Francine told me they were real friends, but — it’s very precocious of them. Usually, it’s parallel play at this age. They look like they’re cooperating.”

Luke isn’t so frail, his wings are strong, Eric thought.