Special Episode: Dream Catcher (Part III)
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The clouds beyond the windows are just starting to glow with coral-colored edges. The sunrise is so new that the air has a deep blue tint, very slowly growing lighter. It’s cold.
He’s in his pajamas, standing before the closed door of his parent's bedroom. He spreads his palms on it, then presses his ear to it.
His parents are trying to keep their voices soft and hushed, but they don’t realize that he’s awake and listening on the other side of the door. They haven’t adjusted for that, and they’re not being quiet enough to go unheard.
Ralph’s mom got home a few hours ago. Ralph heard her stagger inside, knock something over in the kitchen, and crash into bed. His dad, on the other hand, came in quietly, tried his hardest not to wake Ralph up. But even in his sleep, Ralph’s ears are always pricked up for the sound of the old pickup pulling up outside.
Ralph’s dad got home about ten minutes ago, and the hushed, half-whispered argument in the bedroom has been going on since then.
With his ear pressed to the door, Ralph can hear everything clearly. Even if he doesn’t totally understand the meaning of everything being said.
“The babysitter said she gave up waiting for you a couple of hours after you were supposed to be back,” Ralph’s dad is saying, clearly struggling to keep his voice quiet. “She said she wouldn’t normally have done that, but that it’s happened so many times, she’s had enough.”
Based on the sourness of her voice when she answers, Ralph’s mom is not happy about being woken up at this hour for this conversation. The last time she was in a good mood is becoming a distant memory, but Ralph can tell right away that she’s in a particularly nasty one right now.
“Whatever. I always hated that babysitter, anyways. And isn’t Ralph old enough to stay home by himself?”
Ralph’s dad breathes out a heavy, sharp exhale of exasperation. “No, he’s not!”
“Well, you can’t blame me for getting sick of it. I’m always the one who has to watch him, because you’re never here!”
“Don’t you think I want to be here, Josie?” Ralph’s dad sounds like he’s ready to crack under the strain. “I just worked two back-to-back shifts, drove for an hour, then worked for five more fucking hours at the farm, then drove back! I’m trying to keep us from going under! Maybe if you tried to get a job-”
“Someone has to watch Ralph, right? That’s my job.”
“No, it’s not your job to watch him!” Ralph’s dad sounds like he’s struggling harder and harder to keep his voice to a whisper as it rises in frustration. “It’s a lot more than that, but you’re not even watching him! You’re barely even trying anymore! You won’t even try harder just to be nice to him, I actually think you’re getting worse about that all the time! How you treat me is one thing, but I’m not gonna stand by and let you start giving Ralph the same bullshit!”
“Oh, and what are you gonna do about it?” Ralph’s mom must be waking up more, because there’s much more deliberate venom in her voice. “I’ve seen how great you are at making things happen, Adam. That’s why we’re still here, right? In Scinsci? That’s why we’re still broke and in debt, and why we have nothing, and why you’re working dead-end jobs that barely pay a dime?”
There’s silence, followed by a soft squeak of mattress springs, like Ralph’s dad just sank down to sit on the bed.
“What do you want me to do?” he rasps, his voice breaking with exhaustion. “Seriously, Josie, what can I do? I’m fucking trying, don’t you know that? Do you really think this is what I wanted for us? For Ralph? For us to be struggling like this? I want us to be happy again, I want-”
Ralph’s mom cuts in when his voice begins to waver. “You said you were gonna ask Dan if he could-”
“I did, and he said he can’t put in a good word for me, because he just got laid off! Everyone I talk to is getting laid off, no one is hiring on new people. I don’t even know how stable what I’ve got right now is-”
“Then why don’t you just fucking enlist, Adam? The recruiter guy made it sound like a good deal.”
“He gets paid to make it sound like a good deal.”
“It’s actual money, unlike what you make now. I know you kept the papers and stuff he gave you about it.”
“Because I was fucking desperate, not because I actually want to do it! Just enlist? Jesus Christ, don’t you know what that actually means?”
“It means we’ll have money, and then maybe there’ll be something worth sticking around for in this house.”
“That’s all you’re sticking around for now!” Ralph’s dad suddenly blurts out, his hushed voice flaring with anger. “You need money, and you need a place to live. That’s the only reason why you stay at this point, isn’t it?”
There’s a pause before Ralph’s mom answers.
“You’ve known that for a while, Adam. You were trying to pretend it isn’t true, so you can buy yourself time to fix everything, and we can all go on playing house.”
Another silence falls, this time broken by Ralph’s dad. “I just want - I just want our family to stick together…”
His mom makes a scoffing sound. “Our family.”
Ralph’s dad keeps his voice to a whisper-shout, but he sounds ready to explode. “We are still a family, goddamnit! You’re Ralph’s mom, you’re my wife!”
“I’m only your wife because I’m his mom!”
“Really, Josie? That’s fucking funny, I kind of thought we were in love, and that had something to do with it! At least back then!”
“We were in high school, Adam! Everyone thinks they’re in love in high school, then they grow up! Except you, apparently!”
“I’m not so sure it’s me who didn’t grow up after high school!”
“Really? Because you act like you still believe in fairy tales! All we’re doing now is paying the price for the mistake we made back then! You can go on pretending this is anything else if you want, but I’m sick of it!”
There’s silence from Ralph’s dad for a moment, and then - “You’re still drunk from last night.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“I sure as hell think it does! Do you hear the shit you’re saying? Listen, I understand that you’re disappointed with how things have turned out, I get that you’re not happy, and that you feel - trapped by everything, but don’t let the booze do the talking for you, it makes you get so-”
“It’s not. This is just what I’ve been thinking.”
“Honestly, Josie, the way you’ve been talking to me these days, the way you’ve been acting - I’m not gonna take this shit forever! Especially not if it’s directed at Ralph, now, too!” Ralph’s dad is breathing hard and fast, all of a sudden. Ralph can hear it even through the door. “I’m serious! I’ll take him and I’ll go!”
“Go where, Adam? You know you can’t do this on your own. You’ve got no one to stay with. You don’t have enough money to move, much less to support you and Ralph after you do. You don’t have anyone to watch him while you’re at work. And don’t say that you’ll make me go away instead, because it’s our place, husband. You can’t do that. We’re stuck here together.”
“Right. You’re stuck here, too, because I’m the only one who has to keep giving you money and can’t kick you out. That’s the only way I’m really different from the others, isn’t it? They can just get fed up with your nasty moods whenever, decide that they’re done tolerating it. And this is, what - just your place to land when that happens?”
A long, icy silence hangs in the air before Ralph’s mom answers that. “The others?”
“I’m not stupid, Josie. I know that wasn’t a goddamn repairman I caught leaving our place when I came home early the other day. I'm surprised you even bothered to lie to me about it.”
“Yeah, well. I was trying to be nice.”
“What-?”
“By bothering to lie to you about it.”
An incredulous pause.
“That’s you being nice, huh?” Ralph’s dad is speaking with a tremble in his voice that makes Ralph’s heart ache painfully on the other side of the door. “Then maybe I’ve been wrong, trying to keep us a family all this time, trying to salvage what we had. I don’t want you to have a hand in raising my son. I don’t want him to be like you.”
“Oh, he’s your son now, Adam? Not ours?”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
There’s a silence, maybe while Ralph’s mom thinks about it. No immediate answer.
Ralph closes his eyes, leans his forehead against the door. It doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to him, but Ralph’s dad must be thrown by this response. There’s a long, long pause before he finally speaks again, this time much more softly and quietly, so that Ralph has to press his ear to the door again to hear him.
“Listen,” he murmurs, in a pleading voice, with some hopeful tenderness in it. “Don’t - don’t say anything you don’t mean. I know we’re going through a hard time right now, I know we have been for a while, but don’t - he needs his mom. You’re ignoring him because that’s easier than thinking about the ways we’ve let him down. But he’s our son, Josie. Do you remember how sweet and shy he was even when he was so little? Remember how he got overwhelmed and burst out crying when he was a baby, because we were all looking at his little smi- what - what are you doing? Where are you going?”
“To the quote-unquote repairman’s house,” snaps Ralph’s mom, just barely managing to keep her voice to a soft hiss. “Maybe there I can actually get some sleep.”
“To the - are you fucking serious?”
It dawns on Ralph that the argument is headed towards the bedroom door. He can hear his mom’s footsteps getting closer, and his dad following after her.
Ralph spins around and rushes down the tiny hallway to his bedroom. He scrambles up onto his bed and sprawls out on his side, facing the door. He’s just tugged the blankets back up over himself when he hears his parents coming. They’ve dropped their voices to even quieter whispers, but he can still just make them out. He pretends to be asleep and sneakily opens his eyes a little bit, watching.
His mom stumbles past the open door of his bedroom, still wearing what she came home in last night. She stops to snatch up her purse, dragging her tangled hair up into a ponytail. Ralph’s dad stops behind her, watching in disbelief.
“-gonna do this right in front of me?” he’s whisper-shouting. “Just leave and go to some other man, then what - come back like nothing happened?”
Ralph’s mom casts him a disdainful look over her shoulder as she shrugs her jacket on.
“You’re baiting me,” Ralph’s dad stammers, as quietly as he can, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “You’re trying to turn me nasty, the way you’ve let everything turn you nasty. That would make you feel better, wouldn’t it? But I’m not gonna let you do that, and I’m not gonna let you do that to Ralph, either. Just like I’m not about to let you storm off to some other man’s place-”
“You’re not gonna do a damn thing about it.” She whips around and slaps the USAF recruiting flyer into his hands. “For the same reason you’ll never enlist, or have any real accomplishments to speak of, or be able to hold onto a woman, even looking the way you do. Or actually take Ralph and leave like you threatened to, and try to raise him all on your own. Because you’re not man enough, Adam. And I bet one day Ralph is gonna grow up to be just like you.”
She says this last part like it’s the worst insult she could think of. Then she turns and leaves without another word, leaving Ralph’s dad standing motionless in the hallway just outside of Ralph’s bedroom door.
Ralph can’t risk opening his eyes any further, so he can’t see his dad’s face clearly. But he can see that his dad is holding stock still, his breaths coming and going very strangely. Staring at the door as it slowly swings shut after Ralph’s mom. Holding tight to the recruitment flyer, with both hands.
Ralph is desperate to go hug him and make him feel better, but if he does that, his dad will know that he heard everything. It’s torture, but Ralph forces himself to stay where he is and pretend to sleep.
His dad stands in the hallway, silent and unmoving, breathing in that strange way, for some time.
Eventually he tucks the recruitment pamphlet into the back pocket of his jeans and slowly lifts a trembling hand to his face. He drags the back of his hand over his eyes, then swipes it beneath his nose. He checks his watch, then turns towards Ralph’s room.
Ralph closes his eyes completely as the soft thump of his dad’s heavy work boots stirs the quiet of his bedroom. His bed sinks down a little as his dad sits down on the edge of it.
He leans down and gently folds Ralph into his arms.
Ralph doesn’t want his dad to know what he heard, so he doesn’t open his eyes. But even without looking, even after everything that’s already happened this morning - he can’t help but break into a small smile. He’s locked in the warm embrace of his dad’s arms, and the sweet feeling of that counteracts everything bad in the whole world.
Far away, in Jamie and Aiden’s garden, a glowing, adoring smile slowly turns up the corners of Ralph’s mouth.
Ralph’s dad is all lean, hard muscle, with heavily calloused hands and rough stubble on his face. The opposite of all the softness of Ralph’s little bed. But those textures just make his touch all the more familiar, all the more instantly soothing to Ralph’s soul. He smells like coffee, and like cool, fresh, green air. A little bit like hay and dark earth, too. Chilly air clings to his clothes, but his arms are warm.
“Hey, buddy.” He presses a kiss onto Ralph’s temple, giving him a squeeze. “I’m home.”
Ralph’s four favorite words to hear in the world, so long as they’re coming from this voice. His toes curl happily beneath the blankets. His dad must see the big smile spread across his face, because he breathes out a soft, affectionate laugh, then smooths a hand over Ralph’s hair.
“I missed you,” Ralph says, meaning it with all his heart.
His dad smiles against his temple, then gives him another tight squeeze. “I missed you, too.”
Silence falls for a moment before his quiet voice breaks the sunrise hush of Ralph’s bedroom again.
“You’ve got ten minutes to snooze before you have to start getting ready for school. I’m gonna go make you some breakfast, and then I’ll walk you there, alright?”
Ralph hesitates, mentally adding up all the hours that have passed between when his dad left for work and when he came back.
“Aren’t you tired, dad?” he asks anxiously, without opening his eyes.
“Mhm. That’s why we’re gonna walk together instead of me driving you.”
Ralph knows that his dad prefers to drive him to school when he takes him there. He’s a lot younger than the other parents dropping off kids Ralph’s age, and even with the darkness of exhaustion always hanging around his eyes, he looks a lot younger, too. Ralph thinks it makes him self-conscious, because he usually stays in the pickup and tries not to walk up to the school unless he has to. But he’s clearly willing to brave it today.
Still, Ralph can hear the depths of exhaustion in his voice.
“I can walk by myself, dad,” he offers, his heart hurting strangely. “So you can sleep.”
“No, no. I’m up.” His dad doesn’t let him out of his arms as he bends to kiss the top of his head. “I want to walk with you. You can tell me about how school was yesterday on the way there.”
Ralph knows it’s not what matters right now, but maybe it’ll make his dad feel better, so he points in the rough direction of his night table. “I got back some grades.”
“This stuff right here?” His dad lets him go, and Ralph hears the shuffling of the papers being picked up. There’s a silence, broken by the soft sound of the pages turning, then a warm laugh from his dad. “Damn, kid! You’re gonna be top of your class, rate you’re going! Look at you!”
He drops the papers and gathers Ralph up into his arms again. Ralph lets out a little giggle of laughter as his dad affectionately nuzzles his nose into his hair, tickling him with his layer of blonde stubble.
“I always said you’re the one with the brains in this family, didn’t I? Where the hell did you get those from, anyways?”
“Dad,” Ralph laughs happily, pushing his face away.
“We’re gonna run out of good-grades room on the fridge! That was never a problem when I was in school, believe me!”
Ralph glows inside at the obvious pride he hears in his dad’s voice. He turns his head to hide his face in the blankets, smiling from ear to ear.
But the bad feeling from yesterday suddenly climbs back into Ralph’s chest. His dad wouldn’t be nearly so proud if he knew what happened at school.
His dad must notice his smile falling, because concern takes over his voice. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Ralph is glad he hasn’t opened his eyes yet. He can’t quite look at his dad right now. He plucks uncertainly at the blankets, biting the inside of his cheek.
His dad waits a moment, then sits up and gently spreads a hand on Ralph’s side. “C’mon, little man, you know you can tell me anything.”
“I…” Ralph nibbles his lip, twisting the blanket around his fingers. “I said something really mean to a boy in my class yesterday. And he didn’t even do anything to me.”
“What?” Ralph’s dad sounds understandably startled. “Why’d you do something like that, buddy? That’s not like you.”
Ralph hesitates again, struggling to think of how to explain. “His mom puts a note in his lunchbox every day. Notes with a message and hearts and smiley faces and stuff. He opens them and reads them while he eats.”
“Okay? So what happened yesterday?”
“I don’t know.” Ralph slowly shrugs his shoulders, baffled and ashamed. “I was just watching him read the note from his mom like every day, and I - I just got really mad.”
Silence from Ralph’s dad for a second. Then he lets out a heavy, ragged breath. It sounds pained, frayed around the edges.
“Oh, bud, it’s - it’s okay. You shouldn’t have done that, but it’s not your fault. I think you’re just upset about - about stuff going on here-” He stops for a second, swallows, then clears his throat. “You’re feeling bad about what you said to that other kid, now?”
The unhappiness on Ralph’s face must be all the answer he needs.
“Well, I know it’s awful, but that bad feeling is there to guide you. It’s this, telling you not to do it again.” His dad presses one hand to Ralph’s chest, right over his heart. “Just listen to what it tells you. What does it want you to do about this?”
Ralph winces reluctantly. “Tell him I’m sorry? For what I said?”
“Good instinct.” Ralph’s dad presses a little harder against his chest. “Because you’ve got a good heart, Ralph. And it’ll feel all better when you make things right.”
Ralph nods slowly, full of relief.
“We can talk about it more on the way to school.” His dad messes up his hair again, then gently lets him go. “You’ve still got five minutes to snooze. I’m gonna go get breakfast started and pack you some lunch, alright?”
“Okay.”
Ralph finally opens his eyes. He watches as his dad gets up from the bed and stretches, rolling out his neck. The growing sunlight catches on his blonde hair, slides down the tattoos that wind up his left arm to his shoulder.
He pushes a hand through his hair, then slowly crosses Ralph’s bedroom, heading for the door. His back is to Ralph, but he looks deeply exhausted, swaying slightly with each dragging step he takes. His jeans are spattered with mud up to his knees, and there are bits of green grass stuck to his boots. Probably left there from picking up more odd jobs at the farm before he came home from his shift.
He’s barely holding his head up, but he has Ralph’s graded homework in his hands, and he’s reading as he goes.
He stops next to Ralph’s dresser, where a notepad is sitting open with a pen on top. He looks at it for a second, picks up the pen, and clicks it on. He takes a minute to scribble something down, then tears the page off of the notepad. He folds it up and puts it in the back pocket of his jeans, but Ralph catches a flash of the last two words at the bottom. Love, dad, with a smiley face.
Ralph realizes all at once that it’s a note for his lunchbox. Something in his chest tightens strangely, painfully, nearly forcing tears into his eyes. Suddenly his heart is aching.
He listens to what it tells him to do, like his dad said.
“Dad?” he calls softly, quickly sitting up on his bed.
He pauses in the doorway, looking over his shoulder at Ralph. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
They say it to each other all the time, every day. Often and easily. But for some reason, this time Ralph’s dad just looks at him for a long moment, motionless. Even his expression goes very still.
He turns around and comes back over to Ralph’s bed, sits down again. He smooths a trembling hand over Ralph’s hair, tears suddenly wobbling on the lashes that fringe his dark green eyes.
He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Ralph’s, his voice hoarse and raw. “I love you too, buddy.”
Ralph puts his hand on top of his dad’s, taken aback, his eyes wide with concern. His dad shakes his head, trying to take a deeper breath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I know I’m being weird. I’m just - just a little tired-”
“Dad,” Ralph stammers, in a very small voice. He wrings his fingers together, sudden tears spilling down his cheeks, a sob rising in his chest. “Did I ruin everything for you and mom?”
His dad lifts his head sharply. He looks thunderstruck, his eyes suddenly wide awake.
“What?” His voice sounds shattered apart. He lifts Ralph’s face to his and thumbs away his tears, then wraps him up in his arms, gathering his shuddering little body to his chest. “No, buddy, how can you even ask-? The day you were born was the best day of my life, and holding you for the first time was the best thing that ever happened to me! I hope you get to experience that feeling yourself one day, if that’s something you want, ‘cause it’s like nothing else!”
Ralph wraps his arms around him gratefully, but his dad still sounds absolutely heartbroken.
“You didn’t ruin - you never ruined - where’d you even get that id-?”
He cuts himself off abruptly. Ralph draws back and looks up at him, and he can see in his dad’s eyes that he knows. Maybe he doesn’t know that Ralph overheard what happened this morning, but he knows exactly who Ralph got that idea from.
He stares blankly down at Ralph, then sits back and slowly runs a shaking hand over his beard of blonde stubble. His grey-green eyes are blurred with tears, but he takes a trembling breath, swiping them away before they can fall.
“Hey.” He takes both of Ralph’s hands in his, gazing into his eyes. “Can I ask you something, Ralph? Something serious. I need you to think hard about it, and to tell me the truth no matter what the answer is.”
Ralph nods nervously, uncertainly. “Okay.”
“Would you be happy if it was just you and me? Without - without your mom?”
Ralph stares at his dad, startled, then nods earnestly, almost holding his breath. Ralph’s dad blinks hard at him, then drops his eyes to the blankets, absorbs that for a second.
“Okay, and again, be honest with me, buddy… if I had to take a job that would take me away from home for a while, to get enough money for us to be on our own - do you think you could be okay here for a little bit, with only your mom?”
Ralph freezes, then draws back in alarm. “Are you talking about the army, dad?”
“It wouldn’t be for too long, yeah? I’ll sign up for the shortest amount of time they’ll have me. I’ll try to get back as fast as I can, as soon as I’ve got enough for us to set up on our own.”
Ralph takes his dad’s thumb in both hands, afraid. “Isn’t - isn’t it dangerous and - scary?”
“Yeah, sometimes, but - plenty of jobs are scary, right? People still do ‘em, and come out just fine.” His dad looks afraid, too, but he’s clearly trying not to let it show. “If I join up I can earn enough to move us away from here. Enough that we can afford to move your mom away from here, too, to someplace where she can be happy. You could go visit her sometimes, when she’s - feeling better.”
Another tear slips down Ralph’s cheek. “But I would miss you so bad.”
“I’d miss you, too. Like crazy. Last thing I want to do is be away from you.” Ralph’s dad sniffles, then gently smooths Ralph’s tear away, right as one slides down his own cheek. “I wish I had a brain like yours, buddy, because I - I honestly just can’t think of a better plan.”
Ralph bites his lip, twisting his fingers together as he looks up at his dad. “But you would come back whenever you can, and - we can talk on the phone, like when you work overnights?”
“Every time I get the chance, I promise. I’ll try to get stationed close to home. And I won’t have to go too far straight away, hopefully. There’s training camp, or - whatever it’s called.” He hesitates, cupping Ralph’s cheek in his calloused hand. “But you can’t tell your mom our plan for what happens when I get back. And we’re only doing this if you really think you could be okay staying with her alone for a little while.”
Ralph considers that, turning it over in his mind. It sounds so hard, but - if he can just get through it…
He looks up at his dad, his eyes wide and hopeful. “And then it’ll be just us, dad? We’ll be together all the time?”
His dad nods, breaking into a smile. “Would you like that?”
Ralph nods eagerly, taking two handfuls of his dad’s shirt in excitement. His dad lets out a shaky laugh, then gathers Ralph up into a close hug.
Ralph wraps his fingers around his dad’s inky forearm. One of the tattoos there is a tiny handprint, Ralph’s handprint from when he was a baby. Ralph fits his hand over it, snuggles deeper into his dad’s arms, and - everything feels perfectly right. He has the warm, rich sense of perfect oneness, perfect wholeness, that he only gets when he’s right here in his dad’s embrace. This is the center of all his gravity, the source of the flame of love in his heart that carries him through everything. Nothing can hurt him here.
His thoughts are already going to the possible future, which suddenly looks so much brighter. He can picture it. He can picture his dad happy, and that makes his mouth turn up in a big smile. Suddenly he’s nearly giddy with excitement, with hope.
His dad keeps him in his arms, bends over Ralph to press a kiss onto his head.
“We’ll go somewhere new,” he tells Ralph, holding him close, his tears falling softly into Ralph’s hair. “When I get back, we’ll start over, okay? We’ll go anywhere you want. It’ll be just you and me, buddy. Everything is gonna be okay. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make this all up to you.”
Ralph buries his face in his dad’s chest. “I’ll make it up to you, too.”
“No - no. You don’t have anything you need to make up to me, you haven’t ruined - Ralph, listen to me, and don’t forget anything I’m about to tell you, okay?”
Distantly, in Jamie and Aiden’s garden, blissful, radiant happiness pours into Ralph’s heart just the same as it pours into his little heart in the memory as his dad keeps talking.
“You’re the most precious thing in the whole world to me. I wouldn’t trade you for anything, not a goddamn thing. I’m grateful every day that you’re here, that you’re mine. And what I want more than anything, more than anything, is to see you happy. So long as you’re happy, I’m happy, too.”
Love in infinite proportions makes an overwhelming rush into Ralph’s heart, both in the garden and on the little bed. More than anything, he urgently needs to communicate it to his dad. It all comes out in a stuttering tumble of words, and he’s pulling at his dad’s leather wristbands the whole time.
“And you’re the - the best dad in the whole world, and in the whole galaxy, and in the - the whole, um - what’s the next one, after that?”
Ralph’s dad breathes out a quiet laugh, drawing back to look down at him. “I don’t know about all that. Bet there are those who’d say I need a lot of improvement.”
“Not me,” Ralph insists, looking up earnestly at him. And then, remembering what his mom said - “I hope I grow up to be just like you.”
Ralph’s dad blinks hard. He stares at Ralph with wide eyes, his eyebrows drawn up and together. Then he makes a strange, soft, sudden sound in his throat, almost like a laugh. He quickly brushes the welling tears away from his eyes, gently cuffs Ralph’s chin, and smiles down at him.
“Means a lot, buddy,” he rasps softly.
“I mean it,” Ralph answers, striving with all the might of his little soul to let his dad see how true it is in his expression.
Seriously, the Ralph in the garden adds, staring with his younger eyes up at his dad, whose face looks so much like his own. I meant that. You were the best dad anyone ever could have asked for. You meant everything to me. If I ever get to be a dad, I hope I’m exactly the kind of dad you were. I loved you so much, and I still do. I still miss you so much. Every day.
I miss you, too, buddy. With all my heart.
In the garden, Ralph’s eyes fly open, but he’s not seeing with those ones right now. His younger self is gazing up at his dad, and his dad is still gazing down at him. He hasn’t said anything that wasn’t part of the memory. Not out loud, anyways. His mouth hasn’t moved.
But - Ralph could swear… through his younger eyes looking into his dad’s eyes in the memory, somehow -
I can’t wait to have you back in my arms again someday. But I’m watching, in the meantime, and I’m listening. I’m so proud of the person you’ve become. And I love you, too. Just as much now as I did in this moment, looking down at your little face. You can’t imagine how much.
Ralph stares up at his dad, who’s still silently smiling down at him, his grey-green eyes full of warmth and love.
“Oh-” His dad glances down at his watch, then gives himself a shake. “There goes your ten snoozing minutes. Time for breakfast, which - oops, I didn’t make.”
“Oops,” Ralph laughs, twisting his fingers around his dad’s wristbands.
“Let’s make breakfast together, yeah? You wanna hitch a ride on my shoulders to the kitchen? Is the ceiling high enough in here?”
“No, it’s not!” Ralph breaks into giggling laughter, shaking his head. “And I’m too big for that, dad!”
His dad pauses, then tips his head to the side, blinking hard at Ralph.
“God, I - I guess you are now, huh? Jesus, you’re getting so big so fast.” He lets out a watery laugh, then tousles Ralph’s hair. “I’ve really got to get a camera. You’re not too big for a piggyback ride, though, are you?”
“No,” Ralph says, with growing excitement.
His dad smiles, turns around to sit with his back to Ralph, then falls backwards, knocking Ralph flat on his back and landing with his back on Ralph’s chest. Ralph lets out a burst of laughter, grabs hold of his dad before he can sit up. His dad settles him on his back, then looks at him over his shoulder, grinning happily.
“Ready?”
“Yes!”
“Should we do the danger ride?”
“What’s the danger r-?”
Ralph breaks off into a cascade of startled laughter as his dad ducks down and rushes across the room, dipping low then getting high, tossing Ralph around like he’s on a rollercoaster. Ralph holds on tight, his cheek pressed against his dad’s back, his dad’s breathless laughter mingling with his own in his ears.
The memory quietly fades away around him, ebbing softly into the sounds of the garden, the rustling of the weeping willow. There’s moss and stone beneath him, the warmth of a puppy at his feet, and a hand wound up in his. Other voices replace the laughter, familiar ones.
“Is he - Aiden, is he okay?”
“I think so, but something happened that I didn't mean to happen.” Aiden sounds a little panicked. “Ralph did something, man. I felt it. His emotions were powerful enough to change what my magic was doing. He did something. He definitely did something. That was more than only a memory, for a second.”
“Why is he shaking? Aiden - he’s shaking.” Noah’s voice is full of mounting alarm. “Okay, I’m holding his other hand now, is that helping?”
Yes, Ralph thinks, clinging tightly to Noah’s fingers.
“I don’t fucking know, dude, I didn’t even know this was possible! It only lasted for a few seconds, but I have no idea what Ralph did - wait a sec, he should be back, I can feel it in his energy.”
“I’m - I’m back,” Ralph stammers, without lifting his head.
“What the fuck, Ralph!” Aiden’s deep voice sounds overwhelmed with relief. “You scared the shit out of me! Way to take the fucking reins right out of my hands! Jesus Christ, are you okay? What happ-?”
Aiden falls completely silent when Ralph lifts his head. He and Noah both stare at Ralph with enormous eyes, frozen in mid-sentence and mid-movement.
Ralph swipes away the tears streaming down his cheeks, but more are already spilling from his eyes, and he can’t do anything about the radiant smile on his face.
“Yeah.” His hoarse voice is fracturing apart as he speaks, his breaths hitching over his words. “I’m - I’m f-fine, better than fine, I-”
He breaks off, rests his elbows on his knees, and drops his head onto his arms. He can’t do anything else. It’s all he can do to keep himself from sobbing, and even that’s not really working.
There’s only stunned silence from Aiden and Noah for a moment.
“What’s - what the fuck is happening, right now?” Aiden stammers. “Are you crying, Noosh? What the hell?”
“I don’t fucking know, man - how often do you see Ralph cry? And like this? This is fucking m-me up. Make him s-stop.”
Aiden sounds dangerously close to tears, too. “Knock that shit off, Ralph, please stop fucking crying, you - you’re making us-”
“I’m n-not crying,” Ralph manages to rasp, struggling to catch his breath between sobs.
The denial is so unbelievably implausible that it draws some shaky laughter from both Aiden and Noah.
Silence falls on either side of Ralph, and then two sets of arms move to fold around him. He knows that they belong to his brothers, but he feels held by another pair of arms, too. Ones that don't belong to either of them. They’re the last trace of the memory, gradually fading away.
But Ralph knows that somehow, someday, they’ll hold him again.
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