The boys scooted ahead as we walked down to the park after dinner the other night. It was a ritual we’d formed for the week we holidayed at my house.
“Watch both ways, then cross,” I yelled out to them both as they stopped in the middle of the road to look.
The little park was filled with kids, staying with their grandpas and yiayias. I sat on the bench in the early evening breeze watching the men run red-faced and sweaty around the ground with kids twice their age.
On the swings a little while later, I was propelling Chickles into the stratosphere and Beau was chatting happily to the kid next to him. They were talking about girlfriends and the other kid Yianni, at ripe old age of four, had two of them on the go.
“My dad has boyfriends,” Beau grinned at his new friend as they swung into the sky.”He even kisses them.”
Suddenly the world was stuck in that moment. I gasped as the grandma pushing the other kid stared at me quizzically. Chicky’s swing came whooshing past my face while I recovered with a feeble cover-up.
As our holiday continued, so did the so-called boyfriends. David Jane jumped into the passenger seat for a trip with the men to get gelato. Spoonfuls later, we were whizzing through his iPad looking at his photos of his alter ego Bo Gan.
The boys reported quietly when he left, “Dad, he has sparkly toenails”.
Then George for breakfast, Anthony for coffee and so on.
Friends jump into this caravan of my revolving family. All of them enter the car with a kiss and a hello.
Walking home from an empty park later two nights later, Beau was a little quiet.
“What’s up, handsome?”
“I just hope when I grow up I will see Yianni again.”
They’d promised to catch up, but Yianni didn’t come back. Beau was touched by their first meeting.
“You may, sweetheart, you just never know what will happen.” I rubbed his head as he scooted down the road.
“You just never know,” I repeated to myself as I lagged behind them.
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