“Father! Come Play Trampoline, Father!”

Today after work I picked up my little one. We have these three-hour visits twice weekly, wherein my normally gray existence suddenly blooms into color, like Dorothy when she first stepped out into the Land of Oz. My little angel is with me, and for that brief flash of hours that usually feels like minutes, all is right with the world.

Today we went to the club (he always loves going there) and we played pool–or rather, we played with a pool table. Drake loves to take the balls out and line them up in order. Thanks to him, I have learned that there are exactly 15 balls in a full rack of poolballs. Furthermore, balls 1-8 are all solid, and balls 9-15 are all stripes; I had not known that until he showed me. Then we will play games where I steal a ball and say, “where’s 13?” and make him find where I have hidden it. And while he wanders away looking, I sneak and switch two of the balls, and he comes back and says “no no no” and puts them back in order .Then he’ll take one of them and substitute the cue ball for it, and “hide” it and say “Wheres 7, Daddy? Where’s 7?” And I will look and find it for him. Then, when it’s time to put the pool balls away, I will take the pool cue, and I will shoot each ball, in order–1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (end of solids, now stripes) 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15–toward a corner pocket. Most of the time, he grabs it in mid-trajectory, and slams it into one of the side pockets instead. We make a game of it, sometimes I can beat him by getting it into the corner pocket, but sometimes he catches it and puts it in the side pocket instead.

Then he will look down to where the balls have all lined up inside the table, all put away in neat order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. If you are ever at the club and you notice the pool balls are all in that precise order, you’ll know Drake and I have been there recently.

Then we went to another room and played video games–old Sega Genesis games, free at the club. God bless ‘em. Sonic the Hedgehog lives, and Drake’s fascinated by Sonic. Hey, he’s 5, who wouldn’t be?

Then we went back home and played in the back yard, because he asked to. I said at one point, “I have to go inside for a minute,” because I know he’s safe out there, and I go in, I use the bathroom, I dawdle for a moment, then he comes to the side door of the house and says, “Father? Come outside Father! Come play trampoline, Father!”

Out of nowhere, suddenly these days, he sometimes just calls me “Father.” My face almost breaks from smiling, and we go jump on the trampoline in the back yard. Very carefully, but he’s very good about staying away from the edges, and mostly just likes running on it and playing with moving balls around with our feet.

Then we drive him back, and I let him choose directions because we are ten minutes early. I stop at each intersection and he knows exactly where the house is, and sometimes he’ll pilot me straight there but sometimes, he likes to play, and he has me take different directions, just to see what’s down a different street, or so we can pretend we’re lost, and he has to help us find our way back. Which he always does eventually.

I busted my camera a few months ago. I curse myself for it each visit. These moments flutter away so quickly, so quickly… I never want to forget a single one.