Like Father, Like Son ✔

Chapter 26 - Father's Day

CHAPTER 26

CAT

One look at the weather app on her phone and Cat wanted to die. It was 91°F and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

Indeed, it was a swelteringly hot Friday afternoon, uncannily so for mid-June in Chicago, and Cat was absolutely boiling. The landlord was supposed to get a guy to come to the complex and fix the air conditioning last week – but you know how those things are. He said he'd do it to shut everybody up, but so far no such luck, which meant dozens of very unpleased and very uncomfortable tenants.

"We might go sleep at Nick's tonight," Cat told her son, who was currently drawing a picture at the kitchen table. When she turned around to look at him, she found him with his face all scrunched up, staring at a blank sheet of paper like he was trying to make it explode.

"What is it?" Cat asked, smiling a little at the look of intense concentration on his face.

"Mama, do you think it's hard to learn Braille?" Luke asked.

Cat's gaze wandered to the clear Braille lettering on her stove, and then to the same clear bumps stuck to the microwave. Nick wasn't too big on the whole Braille thing, preferring audio to textile, so she hadn't had too many opportunities to get acquainted with it herself.

"I don't know, probably not too hard," she answered curiously, crossing to the kitchen table and sitting down in a chair next to him. "Why?" she asked.

"Well, you know how Sunday is Father's Day?" Luke began excitedly, wriggling in his chair as he began to explain his idea to his mom. "Adam made a card for his dad at his daycare and I think Nick should have a card too, but it has to be in Braille so he can read it... and I don't know Braille. Do you think I can learn how to read it by Sunday?"

"Well, you'd have to learn how to read print before you can even consider reading Braille, buddy," Cat giggled, ruffling his hair and earning a very disgusted look in return. "We can figure out how to write his name though," she told him, swiping an index finger over the lock screen of her phone and opening a Google page.

Cat ended up getting out her box of arts and crafts located at the back of the closet in the hallway. She had a few things in there that Luke could use for his card that'd be easy for Nick to feel with his fingertips, and that wouldn't cause too big of a mess for her to clean up afterward.

"You can use string to make the outline of things," she explained to Luke, demonstrating by molding a piece of string into the shape of a blob that vaguely resembled a bunny. "Doesn't that look like a bunny?" she asked.

"Yeah, I suppose it does," Luke nodded after inspecting Cat's piece of artwork.

"Now close your eyes," Cat told Luke, taking his hand in hers and running his finger over the string. "Does it feel like the shape of a bunny?" she asked.

"Yes, it does!" Luke exclaimed with such conviction in his voice.

"That's how Nick sees everything; he uses his fingers to feel the shape and texture of things and that's how he creates images in his head," Cat explained to him. "Now let's find something that we can use for the Braille dots—we could use these buttons... or beads..." she trailed off, inspecting the different types of supplies she kept in the big plastic container.

"No beads, they're too girly," Luke said, looking at a few pink and purple beads with distaste.

They ended up spending most of the afternoon making the Father's Day card together, putting all sorts of cute bits and bobbles onto blue construction paper folded in two. Cat had to admit, it looked super cute in the end and she was pretty sure he'd like the Braille lettering.