Kingdom of Miracles

    I flop onto the small square of dying grass that we call our yard, dropping my suitcase and resting my weary feet. The gloomy sunset is giving way to night, leaving breadcrumbs of scarlet clouds floating in the plumb-haze soupy sky.

     “I’m back!” I call. On cue, a little boy sprints up to me, yodeling, “You’re home! You’re home! You’re home!” at the top of his lungs. I warmly embrace him, inhaling that soothing scent of his- baby shampoo, the slightly burned orange-chocolate muffin he just gulped down, and something unique to little boys. Mud? Worms? Aloe vera hand sanitizer? I don’t know, but it’s intoxicating. I’m home. 

     “Hey, buddy, what have you been up to?” He beams at me, revealing the gaps in his mouth where teeth have begun to fall out.

     “I found something!” He’s jumping up and down in that manic five-year-old style, like he’s just been electrocuted.

     I turn to him, curious. There isn’t a lot he hasn’t already discovered in his little kingdom of our backyard. “What is it?”

     “Close your eyes,” Alex whispers, chubby hands clasping mine. 

     I giggle at the brush of soft baby skin on mine, so young and vulnerable. “Oka-ay!”

     “Close them! Tighter!” he demands.

     I squeeze them tighter, screwing up my eyes comically. “Like that?” I ask.

     “Stay like that! You’re peeking!” he accuses me, pointing a stern finger in my face.

     “No way! I can’t see a thing!” I assure him.

     His sweaty little-boy hands fumble for something in the crabgrass that’s prickling me through my sweatpants. 

     “It better not be another one of those worms you dug up the other day,” I warn him, making a pretend stern face. “Those were gross!”

     He exhales a snort of laughter, innocent childhood breath flying up into the air. I inhale deeply, hoping a part of that breath goes into my lungs. I want to feel like a child again.

     It’s funny, how all I wanted to do when I was a little kid was grow up, be mature, and be allowed to finally live. But now, I sometimes find myself wishing I could start over. Learn from my mistakes. Make the right decisions.

     My mom always chided me about my decisions, clucking her tongue and shaking her head in that holier-than-thou way. Sixteen is too young to start a life, she said. But having Alex was the best mistake- no, decision- I ever made. I can’t imagine a life without him, and I don’t want to. He’s my miracle, the kind of thing that only happens once in a lifetime.

     “Mommy! Mommy! Keep your eyes closed!” Alex exclaims, still groping around for whatever it is he wanted to show me. I chortle- he’s so comically indignant.

     “What did you wanna show me, huh? You can’t tell me to keep my eyes closed forever.” I stick out my tongue, teasing him playfully, and Alex exclaims, in a typical Alex way, “Yes I can! ‘Cause I’m the king of you, Mommy!”

     I raise an eyebrow exaggeratedly. “Oh, really now?”

     He places a fist on his hip, swaggering like a tiny king surveying his kingdom as he skips around the miniscule yard. “Yeah! And this is my castle, over here, under the big tree!”

     I bob a curtsey for him, playing along. “Yes, your Majesty.”

     He gives a triumphant bow. Then a petulant pout forms on his face. 

     Oh, no, I think. Not another tantrum. I can’t take another one. 

     But instead, he holds out his empty five-year-old hand and whispers, “It’s gone, Mommy.”

     “What was it?” I ask, interest piqued.

     “Fires.” He murmurs back.

     Fires? “What do you mean, Alex?” 

     “I had a fires! And now it’s gone! It runned away!”

     He lets out a howl of primordial toddler rage as he points up at the starry dusk sky. “It runned up there!” 

     And suddenly I realise what he means.

     “Shush, Alex, I can get you more fires. Just wait here, okay?” 

     He nods, the beginnings of a tantrum fading away. I grin inwardly- he’s grown so big, my little boy. I wonder when that happened. I'm away from him so much, I sometimes wonder if I'm going to come home one day and find a man instead of the sweet boy I know and love.

     I patrol around the borders of Alex’s kingdom, searching the low-lying bushes and ground-hugging trees that make up a fence for our 10-foot-by-10-foot “yard” until I find what I’m looking for. I scoop it up in my hands and hold it carefully, ignoring the whisper of the old, squeamish me that would recoil in disgust. The 21-year-old that I never got to be.

     Alex runs up to me, hooting, “You found it! You found the fires!”

     I grin and flop down on the small square of brown grass that we call our “lawn”, careful not to squish my precious cargo. He claps his hands in anticipation, chanting, “Fires, fires, fires” in his earnest little-boy voice.

     I crack open my hands to reveal the plain brown bug nestled safely within them. “Look, it’s a firefly.”

     Alex tilts his head. “Fires?”

     I chuckle and correct him gently. “Fi-re-fly.”

     “Fi-re-fly.” Each syllable is delicately pronounced; a new tidbit of the world for him to savour as he pleases. “Firefly.”

     I tap the little bug carefully with my fingertip. It twitches, squirms, then, with a sudden surge of energy, lights up. A golden speck of light in my palm, a small miracle, all hidden within a seemingly plain bug.

     Just like me, I recognise. Society passed me over, my own parents abandoned me, but the glow I have- my miracle- is hidden within this 10-by-10 square foot concrete yard. 

     Alex’s awestruck face reflects the pinprick of amber light. It’s reflected in his soulful green eyes and I know it’s resonating in his heart. His hand, smooth and still unblemished by time, seeks mine out in the gloom of dusk. And in that impossibly eternal moment, I discover what’s been hiding in the crevices of my brain for so long, the recognition of validity for my sorrow and frustration with the world that I’ve been seeking out. 

     He’s sitting right in front of me, in his kingdom alight with gold.

     My little miracle. 

     And in the ending of that beginning, the beginning of the end, everything is alright.