“I know you can, Mom,” he declared impatiently. “But that doesn’t mean you should. Not alone. Not when you’re pretty and cool and funny and like football and should have a guy around who likes you just as much as Gram and me.”

“I can’t just order a guy off a menu, kid,” I told him jokingly, hoping to cut through his serious vibe because it didn’t sit real well that my son worried about me at all, but especially not feeling it this deeply.

It was the wrong thing to say, and I knew this when he set his little man jaw and turned his eyes angrily to the TV.

“You wanna look after me,” I surmised gently.

He tightened his arms on his chest.

Okay, I had to do something.

But God, what I had to do was lie to my kid.

“I’ll be happy someday, Ethan.” There was the lie. Then I gave him a kind of truth. “You’re right, you’re gettin’ older and I should let go a bit and take some time seein’ to me. I’ll do that, promise.” When he didn’t look to me, I prompted, “Yeah?”

It took him a second, but eyes still to the TV, he grunted, “Yeah.”

“I just love you a lot, baby,” I whispered and watched his chin wobble before he got control of it. “You’re the best thing I ever did and I don’t want you to ever forget that.”

He turned surly eyes to me. “I already won’t.”

“That’s good news,” I muttered.

He pushed it. “And I want you to promise that when I turn twelve, you’ll let me walk home by myself so you or Gram or Vi don’t have to come and get me.”

“How about we talk about that when you’re about to turn twelve,” I suggested. “Deal?”

“Whatever,” he mumbled, looking back at the TV.

I let out a sigh, then made a decision.

“Since we’ve already jumped headfirst into the intense, and you just laid it out to your mom that you’re growin’ up and I need to have a mind to that, there’s somethin’ I gotta talk to you about.”

He couldn’t hide his curiosity when he looked back to me.

“What?” he asked.

“Well…” I didn’t know where to begin.

When I didn’t speak further, my kid looked more curious, so I threw it out there.

“I had a not-so-happy chat with your dad not too long ago.”

Ethan’s eyes got big.

I kept giving it to him.

“I didn’t like what he said a whole lot, so I’m thinkin’ on things with him and Peggy. I know you like to spend time with them, but I’m gonna have to ask that you just talk to them on the phone for a while until your dad and me figure this out.”

“What’d he say?”

Shit.

Here we go.

Okay, he wanted to be grown up? I had to let him.

Starting now.

See? The suckage of my life never ended.

I turned fully to him, lifting a bent leg and putting it up on the couch. “Okay, he said that he and Peggy wanna see you more and that kinda freaked me. But when I told him we’d talk about it after I had some time to think about it, he said other things that weren’t real nice. Peggy wants you livin’ with them full-time, and obviously, I don’t want that. So your dad and me are gonna have to figure out some common ground while Peggy sorts her head out, because she’s not gonna get what she wants.”

There were not many reactions I would have guessed my son would have outside of being pissed this went down.

And I was right.

“Live with them all the time?” he asked, his cheeks getting red and his eyes starting to fire.

“That’s not gonna happen,” I promised firmly. “She just—”

“No, it’s not gonna happen,” he snapped, jumped off the couch and cried, “That’s crazy!”

“Ethan, kid, calm down, honey,” I said gently. “It’s not happening. You’re right. Okay?”

He leaned toward me and yelled, “That’s whacked!”

“Kid—”

He didn’t calm down.

He asked, “So, like, they wanna take me away from you and Gramma and…you?”

“Ethan, it’s not gonna happen,” I assured.

He stared at me.

“Baby, sit down, okay?” I asked gently. “We’re good. This is fine. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you that you don’t want. It’s gonna be okay. I’m just tellin’ my little man what’s been goin’ down. Now I need you to cool it and talk it through with me.”

He drew in a breath so big, his chest puffed up with it.

Then he sat down, eyes to the TV, and I gave him time.

Eventually, he looked at me.

“You know, I like him,” he said. “Dad. He’s okay. He can be funny. She’s, like, a really good cook. Tobias and Mary are all cute and do stupid stuff all the time that’s funny. But he’s, like…not Colt. Especially with Peggy. Do you know what I mean?”

Did I ever.

“He’s not Merry either,” Ethan went on. “But in a different way because I never saw Merry with a chick. But, you know, Merry’s funny funny, like he doesn’t try. And Dad’s weird funny because you can tell he’s tryin’. But the Colt stuff, it’s, you know, you can tell Peggy totally calls the shots. It’s weird and a little freaky. I mean, it should be like Colt and Feb or, you know, like Mike and Dusty. Like, he’s the dude and he’s a real dude, but he doesn’t walk all over her and she sure doesn’t walk all over him.” He focused intently on me. “Do you know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean,” I confirmed.

“It isn’t like I don’t like ’em. It’s just weird,” he told me.

“Yeah, I bet,” I agreed.

“But if I had a choice to be around a dude and his chick, it seems more right, the way it should be, bein’ around Colt and Feb or, you know, like, Cal and Vi. Even if Cal is totally badass, Vi still doesn’t let him walk all over her. Dad and Peggy, it’s just…” He shook his head. “Freaky.”

I loved this. I loved all of it, even Ethan laying it out that I needed to look after myself. I loved it so completely, it made me want to get up and shout at the top of my lungs.

I wanted to do that because this one conversation proved that somehow, against the odds, those odds mostly created by me, I’d still managed to raise my son right.

“This is good,” he declared. “I could use a break. Dad asked if I wanted to spend next weekend with them and I was kinda wishin’ I could say no. I’m gonna say no.”

Well, that was a big honkin’ relief.

“Okay, Ethan, I’m glad this works for you, because if you say no, he’ll eventually come to me and then I’m gonna say no for you for a while. Are you good with that?” I asked.

He looked intently at me. “Yeah. And you want, you can tell them I don’t wanna spend more time there and definitely I don’t wanna live with them. He can’t, like, walk into my life when I’m almost grown up and do stuff like that.” He cocked his head and kept talking while studying me, offering, “If you don’t wanna say that to him, I will.”

“How about you keep things cool between you and your dad and let me do the talking for now? That work for you?”

He nodded but said, “If I gotta say it, Mom, I will.”

Oh yeah.

Mental shout for joy.

My kid was smart. He was sensitive. He spoke his mind. He was strong. And he was brave.

I’d raised him right and I was only just over half done. I had more time to set that shit in stone.

That time wasn’t enough, just because it would eventually end and I wanted it to last forever.

But it worked for me.

I nodded to him and replied, “Okay, kid. If you gotta say anything, you should say it anytime. In this situation or whenever. Just be cool about how you say it. You with me?”

“I’m with you,” he muttered.

I tipped my head to the TV. “Now, are we gonna annihilate some more bad guys or you wanna help me clean the coffee table?”

“I’m not done with the M&M’s.”

Of course he wasn’t.

Then again, I wasn’t either.

I had a feeling I missed the boat on broccoli.

But he liked carrots, so I’d get some of those tomorrow.

“Right, you get the Pringles, I’ll get the pizza, we leave the M&M’s, then we kick some butt,” I suggested.