She steps back and lets him push the bed with her precious cargo into the closest room. I wander over to her, wrapping my arm around her shoulder.
“You all right?” I say, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“Yeah.”
“And Ben?”
“Apparently, once I get his ice cream he’s going to be just dandy.” She lets out a relieved chuckle. “Kids, huh?”
“I wouldn’t know, babe. But I’ll take your word for it.”
“Mommy!” Ben calls out to her from his bed. “Come look, I have my own TV! Can I watch a Transformers movie?”
She rolls her eyes and holds her hand out in surrender.
“Ben: one. Postman’s truck: zero. Come on, I guess it’s time you met Ben.”
I hang back, not sure if she really wants me to. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I might need a babysitter sometime. It helps if you’ve met him so you can say no.”
I can’t help but laugh and follow her into the room.
The room is bright and airy. It’s a single room and the walls are plastered with cartoon characters and happy, funny, positive sayings. Ben is propped up on pillows, his arm slung up to keep it out of harm’s way. He grins at us as we walk in, and I’d know he was Butter’s child a mile away. The same warm, open face. The same blue curious eyes. The same mop of dark hair that has a life of its own.
“Are you a firefighter?” are the first words he speaks to me.
“Um,” I falter, not sure whether to disappoint him now or later.
“This is Brad, Mommy’s friend from when she was little.”
“Little like me?”
“Hmm, maybe a bit bigger. When she was about thirteen years old.”
He giggles and doesn’t stop for quite some time.
“What’s so funny, huh?” Emily goes over and strokes his hair.
“You’re too old to ever have been thirteen years old, Mommy!”
She pretends to look offended, her mouth falling wide open. “Mommy is not old!”
“Is your firefighter friend old?”
“Yes, yes I am,” I tell him as I approach the bed, unable to resist this little mini Butter firecracker. “But I’m not a firefighter.”
“Oh.” His face falls.
“I’m better!” I tell him, nodding seriously.
“Better than a firefighter?” He looks incredulous…and unconvinced,
“Sure. I get to travel around the world, and meet lots of cool people.”
“Like who?”
“Like you, Ben. You’re pretty cool.” I give him a wink and hold out my hand for a high five.
He lifts up his good hand and gives my hand a hard slap. “Oh, thanks, Brad. You’re cool too. Not as cool as if you were a firefighter, but pretty cool.”
Emily bursts into laughter. “Ben: one. Brad: zero.”
***
It’s 9 p. m. and the ward is quiet. Visiting hours are over and the nurses’ station is the only lit up part of the floor. I smile at a couple quietly leaving their child’s bedside, looking exhausted, and probably headed for home. I don’t know how they do it. But I guess you just do what needs to be done.
It’s been a long day, and my body is aching in places that didn’t just a few years ago.
“I really am an old firefighter,” I mumble to myself. “Oh wait, not even as cool as a firefighter.”
“Cooler than a firefighter to me,” Emily whispers, as she closes the door to Ben’s hospital room and wanders over to sit next to me in the row of chairs.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
I lean over and bump my shoulder against hers. She surprises me by leaning her head to rest on it.
“Tired?” I ask her softly.
“Like even more than when I gave birth to him. He didn’t wriggle as much then.”
“He’s definitely a bit of a wriggler now.”
“No kidding.”
“He’s a pretty cool little dude.”
“Yeah. I’ll keep him.”
She sighs and I look down to see her eyes close. As long as it was for me, I can only imagine how hard the day has been for Emily.
“Brad?” she says, he eyes still closed.
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going back with you on tour.”
Her words jolt me out of my fatigue.
I move around to face her as she opens her eyes. “What? Why?”
“It’s…it’s just not right.”
“If this is about Ben, of course I understand…” Reluctantly, but I do.
“It’s partly about him, yes. But…I’d already made the decision last night. I was going to tell you this morning that today was my last day. But then all this happened. I have Phil sending someone else to take over for me for the rest of your tour. I’ll help them do the write-up and I’ll make sure…you know, that it’s going to be a good piece. But I just can’t go with you guys.”
Even after everything we’ve been through today, I can’t help feeling selfish that this is the worst news I could hear at this point.
“But…if it’s not Ben, then why?”
“Things are so complicated between us, Brad. What happened before, what’s happening now…even today, that kiss in the fitting room. That can’t happen.”
“Okay, I’m going to ask one last time. Spell it out for me. I’m a clueless male.”
She opens her mouth. Then closes it. I don’t push her; I want her to have the space to tell once and for all. “I can’t be…I never could have been…just one of many.”
“One of many what, Butter?”
“Girls. Women. Just another warm body in the ever-revolving door to your bed!” she almost yells, and the nurse at the station gives her a look.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, struggling not to raise my voice.
“I know about Felicity, Felicia, whatever.”
“What about her?”
“I know you slept with her,” she finally says, her eyes narrowing and her hands balling up into fists.
I can’t really believe what I’m hearing. “That’s news to me!”
“You were flirting with her all through the interview yesterday, and then I saw her come out of your trailer, and Seb and Cadey said …you know, they could hear you in the room next to theirs!”
Her voice is rising again, so I take her hand and lead her into the empty hallway.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, firstly, I was flirting yes, but that’s just my job, plus I was pissed because I heard you talking to your boyfriend or whatever on the phone.”
“Wait, what? I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“You said you missed him and you love him and you wished he was here.” Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes and ball up my fists.