Here today

Ella died on Friday and Ollie moved in on Monday after that. He was an angry little boy and from the first moment on it was abundantly clear that he did not want to be looked at, touched or spoken to, especially by his father. Oh, and he refused to call him “daddy” or any such term: ”Matt-”, he only said when his father went to pick him up from the airport, ”-I do not like like you.”

And that was that. It was quite a while later that it occurred to Matt, that the day of their reunion was two weeks from the second anniversary of the last time they had seen each other. Matt was fairly positive that his son did not remember that last visit – he had been barely three years old then - but clearly boy’s mother’s aversion towards him had rubbed off on the boy as well. Even if he didn’t exactly remember his father walking away from him while he had been crying in his mother’s arms, he absolutely knew that this man had hurt him somehow. Matt thought sourly that Ella had likely never missed an opportunity to remind their son what his father had done. Or not done, as the case was.

”If you can’t keep up with these appointments even once a month” – yes, she had really called the court ordered visits with his son ”appointments” – ”then let’s just agree that you don’t have to do them at all. It’s better that Ollie doesn’t get his hopes up only to have the crushed when you can’t make it,” Ella had said over the phone. Her tone had been carefully blank, but Matt knew she was angry. There was no love lost between him and her, but Ella had always been careful not to show that to their son. Until that time, at least. Both knew that saying that Ollie would be disappointed, much less “crushed”, when he wasn’t able to fly over, was stretching the truth more than a little.

For some reason - Matt was sure he'd had a perfectly rational reasoning behind his decision at the time, even though he had questioned it more than once in the coming years– he had agreed with Ella. It was what was best for Ollie. Matt was constantly broke, which was his main reason for not being able to fly to Houston and back every month – even had he really wanted to. But the truth was also that, no matter how much he didn’t want to feel like that, the visits had begun to feel like he truly was a stranger in his son’s life, that he didn’t know enough of him and his daily life to actually be the parental figure he had wanted to be and had pictured in his head before he was born. Ollie burst into tears every time he saw his dad and kept on crying for several hours into his visit until his mother gave up and took him, leaving Matt standing there like the fool he was. In the coming months the amount of time Ollie spent crying after his mother increased and the time they actually had even sort-of-fun father-son time decreased and Matt started to really have second thoughts on how good of an arrangement this was for everyone, Ollie most of all.

At least Ollie wasn’t crying now, Matt thought briefly, glancing his son surreptitiously as he sat watching cartoons, with his small back stiff and eyes dry but chillingly blank for a five-year-old. After offering him something to drink, eat or play with and him silently refusing all of them, Matt had equally wordlessly switched on Cartoon Network and left his son to find his own way around the house.

It wasn’t like the house was anything grand to look at anyway. After struggling for nearly four years, Matt had finally managed to earn some name among locals and his house-painting business had took off. Or maybe ”taking off” was bit of an exaggeration, Matt thought grimly. At least the business wasn’t losing money anymore and had even been able to hire a couple of apprentices to help him. If Ollie was born now, instead of five years ago, he with all probability would have been able to visit his son even more often than one weekend a month, being a real parental presence in his son’s life. Not just a visiting uncle-like figure, who made up his increasing absence in his son’s life by trying to keep up with his child-support payments. Not that Ella needed them, she was quite capable in providing a nice and carefree living for her and her son even without the bi-monthly checks. But Matt was man enough to admit that the payments were really there to make sure he had at least theoretical presence in Ollie’s life, even if he only saw him once a years when he came to Florida with his mother to visit his maternal grandparents.

For some reason Ella had been even more resentful towards her ex-partner after he had mutually agreed to “take a break” from his monthly visits. To Ella, this was a clear act of abandonment towards her son - and herself - and she made no qualms to call Matt “dead-beat dad” to anyone who would listen. It wasn’t like I was such a stellar father even when the visits were on, Matt thought to himself. He had no problems admitting to himself and to his parents, that fatherhood had been a nice fantasy when there was no actual child to care for, but the actual brutal reality of shared custody was proof that he just wasn’t cut out to be a father.

By seven pm Ollie had not moved from his spot on the armchair in front of the tv but his chin was drooping towards his tiny chest and he seemed to have enormous difficulties keeping his eyes open. He seemed more than determined not to fall asleep. Ollie had to be absolutely knackered from traveling, emotional distress and hunger. Matt was a little ashamed to admit that he had first been relieved that there was no crying or tantrums upon Ollie being handed over to him from his case-worker. Ollie, however, had absolutely refused to hold his hand let alone being picked up by him.  Loud “NO!”, when Mrs. Call had made to shift him from her arms to Matt’s, had been the last word he had uttered since his arrival to the great state of Florida and his new home. Now, snoozing in the armchair, he still held his little backpack in his hands like he had when Matt first saw him at the airport and hadn’t agreed to take off his sweater either.

No matter how much of a dead-beat he was, Matt’s heart ached for the angry little boy. For what other way had this little boy to handle what must have been a crushing grief over losing his mother and the most likely paralyzing fear of moving across the country to live with a man he did not know. Ollie knew of him, of that Matt was sure. Ella had unashamedly and with ill-hidden maleficence told him during one of their explosive phone calls concerning an overdue child support check, that Ollie had asked where his daddy was and that she had told him that “daddy does not love us and doesn’t want to live with us”. Matt swallowed over the hurt and the sudden flair of anger Ella’s spiteful taunt had caused and commented with a harsh tone that only half of that statement was true. He most certainly did not love her and would have rather shot himself than lived under the same roof with her again. He would have wanted to tell her that he would have loved to be a part of his son’s life in she only let her, but even through the enormous resentment he had towards her right at that moment, he had to admit to himself, that while she most definitely was mostly a positive influence in their son’s life, he most certainly wasn’t. He wasn’t an influence at all, not even a financial one, since apparently Ollie and his mother didn’t need his money. For Ella, and Matt himself his meager checks were only a matter of principal. If he couldn’t even keep up with them, there wasn’t really much use they had of him.

It was obvious that while Ella’s anger was 99% for her son’s behalf, there was still a tiny fraction of her that was hurt that Matt had not fought harder for her too, when the separation became imminent. Ella had found out that she was pregnant two weeks after she had moved out, but for Matt, there had been nothing to be done for the salvation of their relationship at that point. Not even the pregnancy had changed the fact that they were toxic to each other. Ella had suggested that they’d “try again” even for the sake of the coming child, but Matt had been resolute. He had actually been quite excited about the idea of becoming a dad, but he absolutely had abhorred the idea of sharing a life with the mother of his child.

But, as it was, nothing had turned out as he had thought. Ella had gotten a great job opportunity in Texas and the heart-ache over Matt’s refusal to try and work things out had only cemented her decision to move as far away from him as possible.

Matt watched as his son’s eyes finally lost the battle against sleep and went to him. He picked the boy up carefully, almost forgetting to breath in an effort not to jostle him, lest he’d wake up in his arms where he had made clear he absolutely did not want to be. Ollie smelled of little boy: sweat, marshmallows and laundry-detergent.

With no small amount of relief Matt noted that Ollie had not even stirred when he transferred him to his bed. The storage room that now was Ollie’s bedroom was bare apart from the brand new bed and a wooden stool next to it. There had been no time to get anything else over the weekend between the news of Ella’s death on a car crash and the subsequent change in his custody status and Ollie’s arrival. Matt sat down on the stool and released the air he apparently had been holding. He leaned his elbows on his thighs and stared the little form of his son on the bed. His son.  Absurd as it was, now for the first time in the five years he’d had a son, he really was a dad. Not just a male parent but an actual influence and father. Matt had expected to be overwhelmed with the responsibility, and he was. But somewhere, surprisingly not so deep within, were also other feelings. Fear, of course, and anxiety, but also excitement and something else. Matt stared his son intently and realized, that the feeling was tenderness. Love.

Why was it such a shock that he, the boy’s father, should feel love towards him? He had never stopped loving his son, even though the visits had. It wasn’t voluntary, the love. The love was born the moment his son was, even before, and would always be there. It however had been too painful a feeling to dwell in, when it had become clear that he wasn’t the naturally attentive and reliable dad he had wanted to be.

What a fool, Matt thought now, a little angry at his own stupidity. Nobody is ever asked if they’re ready be a dad, nor are they ever the father they thought they would be. But it doesn’t matter. I am one, and damned if I know what the hell I’m doing. “There is no try, only do or do not”, Matt growled quietly at himself making a terrible impression of the Star Wars character. It was true though. He couldn’t afford a trial and error here.

Ollie whined quietly at his sleep. Matt stiffened at his seat, holding his breath again. Slowly, carefully, with infinite tenderness and yet somewhat clumsily he lowered his left palm at his son’s side, in what was meant to be a calming gesture. Instead of calming down, however, Ollie’s eyes opened and for a second he stared at his father. His eyes were huge and to his alarm, Matt noticed them watering and two fat tears begun their decent down the little boy’s rounded cheeks. “Mom”, he said, voice small, no at all the harsh, loud voice of the angry little person he had been earlier that day. That was all he said and all he needed to say.

Matt cleared his throat and asked hoarsely and a little awkwardly: “ Do you want me to lie down with you?”

Ollie didn’t answer but turned his back to him and scooted himself against the wall next to the bed. Matt took that as a “yes”, and curled himself next to his son, his knees almost at his chin and not moving his palm from the boy’s side.

“We’re going to be okay, son”, he said to the small form next to him. Ollie didn’t react visibly, and stayed quiet, eyes open and staring the wall. But he let his father stay where he was and accepted his attempt at consoling him, for now.