Educational Experience

Chapter Thirty-Five

The "second act" is a monster--I feel like a real writer now that I've hit that tough act that requires so much finesse. I've jettisoned one whole chapter, rewritten this one 'til I couldn't stand it anymore--it's tough stuff. But I reminded myself that the first draft is where you do those things. And cut myself some slack.

So our boy Colt is working through recent events, and Wyatt is fighting to find her place in his world. The big Christmas celebration is finally beginning, and Officer Friendly will, as usual, rear his ugly head. The end is near in more ways than one. But first, a little fun!

 “Gimme my baby,” Aisha cried, as soon as I walked into the media room with the kids.

She took Tyler and started kissing him all over the face while Cat snuck up and wriggled Taylor out of her little pouch and hoisted her high in the air to watch her squeal. But it was Tyler I kept my eyes on.

What I loved about him at that age, and what Aisha sensed before any of us about him, was that having to fight so hard for his life had made him super sensitive and alert. He didn’t want to miss a move or a minute. In fact, he seemed to be way more aware of what he almost missed than Taylor.

She took surviving as license to chill. Nothing rattled that little girl. She was on cruise control. But Ty was always amped. Like, if you gave Ty a toy, he examined that thing every which way before he played with it. And he might break it open, too, as if he needed to know how it did whatever it did.

When we started giving them baby food, he dug his hands into it, stared at it, smelled it, tasted it and gave you a big messy smile or frown as his final decision after all that. All senses involved. It was like you were tasting it yourself, watching him do it—Taylor inhaled hers, he “experienced” his.

So when Aisha took him, his face lit up and he started kicking his legs and flailing his arms for her as if he was trying to tell her how excited he was to see her with his entire body. I mean, if he had a tail he’d wag it for you. And who doesn’t love a kid who greets you like a puppy, right?

She hugged him and looked over at me and said, “You can jus’ go on about your business now, honey! I got this.”

“Where’s my girl?” I asked.

“She was down there stuffing stockings with her kids,” Mike said. She was sitting next to Cat, sort of staring at Taylor like she was some kind of alien being she wasn’t sure what to do with.

She didn’t have a maternal bone in her body, Mike. As I’ve said, she’s the “male” half of their twosome, an interesting kind of “soft butch” that I’ve never been able to explain all that well because it’s such a combo plate. But she enjoyed the twins because they were these tiny little people who did crazy things that made her laugh. She just needed to warm up a little first.

“Kids from DeGrazia?” I asked her.

“Damned near all of ‘em down there,” Aisha said. “That one Lakesha girl and her crew been here all week.”

“So, what? They’re not there now?”

She poked a fearless finger down into Ty’s diaper checking to see if he was wet or worse, and said “I think they took her someplace to eat or something. They sho’ love that woman—you was right about that.”

“Hey! How’s Bonnie?” Cat asked. A little too quickly and deliberately.

“Not so good,” I said. “Takin’ it pretty hard.”