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Cole would have forgotten it was Mothers Day if he hadn’t watched the nurse at the front desk this morning circle the date on the wall calendar and write Mothers Day! inside the square in yellow highlighter.
It seems like a stupid thing to care about right now but now that he remembered he knew he would feel bad inside if he forgot so he picked one of the tulips from the side yard and shyly presented it to his Mom.
She traces the velvety pink petal with her index finger, smiling in that way that makes Cole feel like she was proud of him. “Thank you honey.” She coughs right after she said it, putting it down on her legs like holding it was too much work, and Cole moves it to the bedside table. “Its beau-” the rest of her sentence is cut off by a coughing fit that leaves her limp with Cole rubbing her left shoulder.
“You should get some rest Mom.”
She just hums, her eyes already slipping shut, and Cole’s heart squeezes. Two months ago she would have said ‘don't be ridiculous honey, you just got here,’ a month ago she would have said ‘okay but after you tell me about everything I’m missing on the outside’, and two weeks ago she would have insisted ‘five more minutes’, but now she just closes her eyes.
The heart monitor beeps and Cole watches the number falling as her heart rate slows and wonders if this will be the last Mothers Day that he has a Mom.
…
It is.
…
The part of life that was his mother, his strong beautiful brilliant Mom, goes into a box in his heart. And on the day she dies he closes the lid, buries the key in the dirt, and pushes it to the corner of his mind.
It's better if he doesn't think about it.
…
“Cole.”
“Hmm?” Cole looks up from where he’s absentmindedly eating a bowl of cereal.
Jay is looking at him in this strange way and Cole slowly puts down his spoon. “I was just wondering if you wanted to come with me to my parents’ house tonight? We’re going out for dinner for Mothers Day and it would be nice if you came.”
“Oh. Um.” Cole just blinks at him. Is it Mothers Day already? He never paid very close attention to dates.
He gives Jay an awkward half smile. “That's okay Jay. I um, I have a lot of training to do today.”
It's a Sunday and Master Wu always gives them more time to rest on Sundays. It’s an obvious lie, he and Jay both know it's a lie but Jay just smiles and nods, promising to return before it gets dark.
He can’t stomach the rest of his cereal.
…
“My Dad is gone.”
“I’m sorry, Lloyd.”
Chen, the island, Garmadon, the Tournament, finding Zane, being trapped, it was all just a blur in Cole’s brain that he’s still trying to decipher.
But none of that mattered right now. His own mental well being didn't matter right now.
All that mattered is that Lloyd is crying.
He scoops him into his lap without a second thought and Lloyd doesn’t fight it. It makes Cole’s heart pinch how young he still really is, how rocky the last few years have been.
They rock back and forth, back and forth, for enough time that Cole starts to lose feeling in his legs but he doesn't let go. He keeps rocking, back and forth, back and forth, the way his Mom used to do to him when he was upset.
“Cole?”
“Yes?”
“You lost your Mom right? What was she like?”
The words come from a tender place. They are kind and confused and grief-stricken and genuine and Cole wants to answer. FSM knows he wants to answer.
But he can’t think about her right now ever or he’ll start crying too. So he doesn't, just squeezes his little brother tighter. His previous life didn’t matter anymore. None of it did. Now his life is about protecting Lloyd.
“It's okay, you don't have to talk about it. I get that.” Lloyd just tucks his head against Cole’s chest and eventually his breathing evens out.
A wash of shame over his inability to talk about her washes through him.
…
“Cole?”
Cole looks up to find Nya in the doorway. She’s already in her pajamas even though it's barely 8 and is holding her hairbrush with a hopeful expression.
“Will you brush my hair?”
He nods, motioning for her to come in. She swings the door halfway shut and sits down at the foot of the bed with a beam.
They sit in silence for a while, comfortable silence that he enjoys as he brushes her hair out, sifting his fingers through each section. Nya didn’t wear her hair down often.
It’s nice. Her hair was soft and silky in his hands and somehow familiar to his eyes.
He gets lost in the repetition, barely hearing what she’s talking about when she starts telling him about something that happened in the show she was watching, and memories he hasn’t thought of in a long time drifts to mind.
“Honey, you can’t jump on the bed.”
No older than 4 or 5, Cole pouts, but he quickly stops when his Mom picks up her hairbrush and starts running it through her hair. He loves watching his Mom brush her hair so he stays still long enough to see.
He jumps down from the bed and tugs on her skirt. “Your hair is pretty.”
“Thank you.” She smiles, putting down the hairbrush and leaning down to kiss him on the cheek even though he squirms.
He wipes his hand over the side of his face, aghast, a streak of lipstick staining his skin. “Eww! Mommy! That’s yucky!”
“Oh hush, it's barely anything.” She laughs, sliding a pin into place in her hair.
“Mom.” Cole taps her on the arm, being careful of the IV, digging in the bag for the brush. “You gotta sit up a bit so I can brush your hair.”
She grabs his wrist when he inches closer, her hands cold and thin. “Don’t. More strands will just come out.”
“But -” he looks helplessly at her halo of hair, at how tangled it's gotten because she hadn’t let him touch it in days. “Mom I think it's time that maybe - I can use the razor that - it would be easier if -” he doesn't know how to say this.
She squeezes her eyes shut, turning her head away and he falls silent. “I know it sounds silly but I’m not ready. I’m not ready for -”
“Mom just because you won’t have hair anymore doesn’t mean you’re going to become some kind of campaign for cancer.”
Her eyes look a little shiny and Cole knows it's selfish but he will not be able to handle it if she starts crying. “I know honey.” Her head falls back onto the pillow. “But I just - I just need more time.”
“Okay.” He kissed the back of her hand and got up to tuck the hairbrush back into the far corner of his backpack where neither of them had to look at it.
“Ow! Tangle.”
Cole snaps back to reality when Nya gives a little yelp from the hairbrush getting caught. “Oh so-sorry.”
“Nah it's fine, I think it's good enough anyway. You mostly got all the tangles out.” She jumps off the bed in a smooth motion, turning to face him with a smile. “Thanks.”
His heart positively stops. She looks, she looks, well -
She looks so much like his Mom. Black hair cascading down her back, that similar crinkle in her eye.
Nya squints at him. “Are you okay? It looks like you've seen a ghost.”
He has, just not in the way she’s expecting.
“No. It's just you,” he swallows roughly and tries to smile at her instead of bursting into tears he really does not want to explain right now. “Nothing.”
She tilts her head to look at him, obviously reading right through him, but her whole face softens in a way that feels a bit like a gut-punch. “Okay. Thank you for brushing it.”
“You’re welcome.”
He stuffs the memories back, far far under.
He thinks about it for the rest of the night
…
“Come out here for some peace and quiet I'm presuming?”
Cole barely heard the door opening and closing behind him but he turns around at the sound of Zane's voice and forces out a laugh that scrapes out dry. “Yeah I guess so.”
“Mothers Day is always -” Zane sighs heavily, “a hard one for us all.”
Cole doesn't say anything, doesn't agree or disagree, but he doesn't really have to. Their home becomes a bit… hostile on Mothers Day. It goes the same every year. Jay hesitantly and anxiously says he’s going to his parents for dinner, asks Nya is she’s going to come, Nya hesitates, Kai’s face storms over, Nya denies the invite, Jay nods and leaves, and Lloyd stands in the doorway and watches him until he can’t see him any longer with the same slightly wounded expression on his face.
It always ends with all three of them crying, Zane making mac and cheese as comfort food, and Jay never bringing it up or talking about his day when he slips back in sometime in the evening, even if he looked happy.
Cole got used to the same show every year and gladly played his part of hiding away and being on his own during it.
“I have to be honest, I thought maybe you would go see your father this year.” Cole almost forgot Zane was sitting there. “After he came for dinner the other week I thought maybe you would start going to see him more.”
“I thought about it.” Cole murmurs, poking at the dirt with the bent stick he's picked up and it's only a half lie. He thought about it in the way the people think about reaching out to that old coworker they kinda liked to get lunch with. It's a nice thought but he wasn’t actually going to do it. Not this year, at least.
Zane glances at the side of his face. “You know those flowers growing in the park are open for people to pick. If you ever wanted to choose some and take them to her grave.”
It is a bold thing for Zane to say and they both know it. Not because Cole doesn't talk about his Mom but -
who is he kidding? He doesn't talk about his Mom.
He just turns his head and nods stiffly and Zane must get the message because he stands up, pats his shoulder, and goes back inside.
Cole hears the stupid argument happening in the living room in the split second Zane opened the door and he can already hear the inevitable tears lining Kai and Nya’s voices.
Cole wonders what's so wrong with him that it makes him unable to cry on Mothers Day.
…
“Oh! And Cole darling, Jay told me how much you liked my lemon meringue so I made an extra yesterday for you to take home!” she shuffles around in the fridge before pulling out a pie dish and handing it on to Cole. “Make sure you hold it carefully on the drive home, but that’s all yours dear.”
Cole takes it from her, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. “Wow, thank you Mrs. Walker. That’s so kind of you.”
She laughs, waving her hand in the air. “Oh you’re most welcome. Anything for my boys.”
Cole's heart stutters in his chest.
She turns to Jay who is watching all this with a soft smile and hugs him tightly, kissing his forehead. “Goodbye sweetheart. Make sure you take care of yourself. And do your laundry. And eat properly. And call me on the weekend.”
“Yes, yes, I will Ma.” Jay rolls his eyes playfully but he hugs her back and kisses her cheek. “I’ll see you soon, I promise. I love you.”
“I love you too dear.” She brushes a curl off his forehead.
Then she turns to Cole, studying him for a second before laughing. “You’ll have to bend down so I can do the same to you.”
Cole’s breath catches but he almost-hesitantly bows his head down. Mrs. Walker kisses his forehead then hugs him. It's warm and peaceful and so overwhelmingly mom-ish that it leaves Cole blinking back moisture.
It had taken him a long time to gather up the courage to come with Jay but he didn't think in a million years the night would end like this.
“Goodnight sweetheart.” She pulls away and pats his arm. “Take care of yourself too and drive safe. I’ll see you soon.”
Cole just nods. He is silent, mind reeling during the walk back to the car, and as Jay starts driving.
Halfway home Jay glances at him at a red light. “You good?” he asks lightly, no pressure in his tone.
Cole huffs a half-laugh, emotion bubbling in his throat. He just nods.
Jay doesn’t ask him to elaborate.
They fall back into a peaceful quiet, the illuminated city at night flashing by the windows.
They are almost back to the monastery when Jay breaks the silence once more. “Cole?”
“Yeah?”
“You know that as my best friend in the whole world, what’s mine is yours, right?”
Cole takes a deep breath to keep his voice from breaking before responding. “Yeah.”
…
“Alas, you’re not half the warrior your mother was.”
“Maybe not, but I am her son. And I made her a promise, to stand up to tyrants like you. Always!”
Cole’s hand closes over the pendant as they board the Bounty.
It was so small in his hands. The metal is frail, worn over by time, tinged with rust. He can probably break it easily in his fist.
He cradles it gently. It's so delicate. But so sturdy.
Everything about it reminds him of her. This whole trip, this whole journey, it was all so tied back to her. The Munce and Geckles, they all had so much to say about her. A whole side of his mom that he had never even fully gotten to know.
It made him feel dizzyingly sick but also kind of relieved. There was proof his mother’s life had mattered outside of just him.
He blinks back tears, tucking the locket into the pocket of his gi, turning back to look at her one last time. “Thank you Vania. For all your help. For everything.”
…
It's so dark that Cole can barely see his own feet as he stumbles down the hallway. He doesn’t know what happened to the hallway night-light, Lloyd probably stole it for his bedroom, and he doesn’t think twice about it, his brain moving on auto-pilot.
He hesitates at the half open door. Not that he thinks Jay will turn him away but, he feels a little weird even after all these years of friendship. Usually when they sleep together Jay is the one who climbs into Cole’s bed. They’ll just be hanging out or Jay will have a nightmare.
Sometimes Cole would be sad and doing that thing where he gets quieter than usual and he swears Jay could sense it because he’d always come bursting in, louder than usual, claiming that he has something important to tell him, spend 45 minutes rambling about a useless topic, and then get all cuddly and crash, taking Cole down with him.
That's been happening more than Cole would like to admit since they came back from Shintaro.
Cole slips in, closing the door farther than it was. Pale moonlight winks from under the blinds but it isn’t much. Even the sky seems to be tired of everything it has to hold together.
Jay is under his weighted blanket, facing the window, and Cole hesitates over his bed for too long of a moment before finally sliding in on the empty side.
He holds his breath as Jay shifts, half asleep, and slings his arm around his chest. “Cole?”
“Hey. Sorry for waking you up.”
“You didn’t, I wasn’t fully asleep.” Jay mumbles. Cole knows he’s lying, he was fully asleep, but he chooses to ignore that right now. “You okay?”
Cole is silent for long enough before answering that eventually Jay blinks to wake himself up a little more and begins tracing patterns on his arm.
“I don’t know.” Cole finally mumbles, hollowly. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really know why this itching under his skin is starker right now. “I just feel weird.”
“Is this about the pendant? About everything that happened in Shintaro?” Jay asks softly.
“I want you to promise me, Cole, that you will always stand up to those who are cruel and unjust. Always.”
He almost forgot about his promise.
“Yeah.” he breathes. “Its just kind of all been hitting me.”
He doesn’t give more clarification.
Jay is quiet for a while but Cole can feel his brain turning right before he speaks. “You know you get to be sad. You don’t always have to do that thing you do where you pretend and hide away and act like it doesn’t bother you as much as it does.” His words are accurate but his tone is kind and that almost makes it worse.
“I don’t know Jay.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Cole sits in what he wants to say for a moment, figuring out how to grab the words. Jay doesn’t rush him. “I don't know if being sad is worth it. Not because she isn't worth it, of course that's not what I'm saying, but because -” he’s surprised to find pressure starting to build behind his eyes, “what's really the point? Of brooding some days because, oh my mom died. Years ago. Lots of people's moms have died. Nothing is going to change that.” His voice cracks.
He can tell Jay is frowning. “Cole, I love you, but that is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said. You're not brooding. This is grieving. It's different and you know it.” He pulls the blanket up a little higher onto Cole. “And I don't care how many people’s Moms have died. That has nothing to do with it. You still get to be sad.”
“You are allowed to grieve. Your feelings aren't less important because it's a wound you’ll carry around forever. And they don't need to work up to some value or have any higher reason other than you loved her. You love her. Present tense. You love her all the time so you can grieve her anytime. And it means something. She means something.” Jay’s voice drops. “Doesn’t she?”
Cole lets a single tear slide down his temple and onto the pillow, briefly shutting his eyes. An image of his mother swims before him, her before her hair fell out, before the sickness dug its claws so deep into their life it left permanent scars, smiling in that way that made him feel as though everything was right in the world. “Yeah. She does.”
“So then your grief does too. And you don't need permission from the world or from anyone to feel it.”
Jay sounds angry.
He doesn’t know how to respond to that.
He buries his face in Jay’s shoulder instead. It's a rare moment of vulnerability, a rare moment of him allowing himself to be totally dependent on someone else for emotional support.
“Is it okay if I stay here?”
“That’s not even a question. Of course you can.” Jay pulls the blanket over him. “I’ve got you.”
It makes the rawness a bit more bearable.
…
“Cole!”
Cole snaps his head up, caught off guard. He quickly tucks the locket away into the top bathroom door among the lotion and toothpaste and Nya’s loose hair ties, wincing when he accidently slams it shut too loudly.
Kai raps at the door. “It's dinner time. We called you like three times.”
Cole opens the door, swallowing hard. “Sorry, sorry. I’m coming.”
Kai gives him a slightly weird look but then shrugs and drops it, and Cole follows him to the kitchen, trying to act casual.
Cole has been thinking about what Jay said last night all day. He was so distracted he missed hits in training and he was late to lunch because he took out the locket and held it for awhile in the bathroom.
Zane passes him a plate when they get to the table and he spoons dinner into it mechanically, instantly zoning out the chatter and noise when he sits down in between Kai and Jay.
More time must pass than he realizes because then Kai’s nudging him and breaking him out of his reverie again.
“Right Cole?”
His fork clatters to the table, his voice coming out a bit shaky. “Huh? Sorry what?”
Kai gives him another strange look and shakes his head. “I was just asking if you agreed with me about how bad Lloyd’s taste in movies has become.”
Cole tries. He really does try to say something back or bite back the tears but to his complete surprise and horror, for once, he just can’t. He can’t hide.
So he starts crying over his plate instead.
Everything goes quiet really fast.
“Cole, what’s wrong?” Zane talks first, his eyes reading concerned.
He opens his mouth to say something, to say he’s fine, to make some lame excuse but -
The words just don’t appear. He just can’t.
“My Mom” is all that leaves his mouth.
“What about your Mom?” Jay’s voice is too kind, his hand on Cole’s knee too gentle, and Cole absolutely crumbles, like rock finally eroding after years of wear and tear.
And that is all he can say, his chest wrung out from those two simple words.
He cries harder. He starts crying so hard that Jay eventually stands up, taking his hand and leading him to the living room. He puts the blanket over his shoulders. He puts a tissue in his hands.
And Cole’s heart clenches and spasms in grief.
He doesn't even really have words or a concrete reason to why, or why not, but it's all just pouring and pouring and won’t stop. It's like all the grief in the box turned to water and is now slipping through the keyhole whether he likes it or not and flooding everything.
Lloyd climbs up onto the couch next to him, pulling him into a hug and Cole lets him. “You are allowed to grieve. She was your mom. Is still your mom. You have every right to be sad that she was taken from you.”
Is that what this was? Was he sad? Sad didn’t feel like enough. Sad felt like pebbles being skipped on a lake, and this felt like a boulder splashing and sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
They’re all forming a circle around him on the floor and then Jay climbs up onto the couch too, touching his arm.
He takes Cole’s hand in his. “Grief doesn’t get easier. It gets better but not lighter. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s just part of it.”
“You’ll learn how to manage that. And we’ll learn with you. Every crevice. Every wave. And maybe,” Zane smiles at him, “maybe it's time you learned instead of pretending it doesn't exist.”
“She existed, Cole.” He didn't expect Kai to say anything right now, his voice sounds gapingly sad but he still does it. “Stop pretending like she didn’t. You had a life with her. You need to own that.”
“And you know, it's okay to talk about good things about her too.” Nya also puts a hand on his knee. “And talk about them. You don’t need to hold it all in all the time.”
Cole sniffs hard, squeezing the tissue in his fist and nods fiercely through his tears. “Okay. Okay.”
So he lets them keep coming and it feels like a release.
And it oddly feels good.
It feels good to grieve. To have his Mom’s locket. To openly love her.
Just because she died doesn’t mean that she has to be some awful little secret.
Lloyd hugs him again and then they're all piling on and crushing in and it feels -
It feels a lot like they are holding him together. Pillars keeping the last of him from collapsing to a place he can’t come back from.
Perhaps that's just what family was.
…
He is having tea with Sensei a few afternoons later when he decides to talk.
These tea sessions he sometimes has with Master Wu are usually conducted in silence. They would sit across from each other on the rug, sipping from the tea cups with the cherry blossoms painted on them, and usually it would be a welcome stretch of peace and quiet before Cole would open the door and be subjected to whatever it was that everyone else was jumping around about again.
He doesn't really know what spikes the feeling but there’s sunlight coming in through the window after 4 days of nonstop raining and Cole just decides that maybe it's time he talked.
“Sensei.”
Wu looked at him expectantly
“I went to the store with Kai yesterday.”
Wu nods, knowing he has more to say.
“And I saw this woman with her two little boys and she was teasing them about how they don’t eat anything but chocolate pudding and for some reason, I thought of my Mom. I’m pretty sure we’ve had that exact conversation.”
Wu smiles, letting him continue.
“And then we went into the chip aisle. And I found the exact brand of super spicy chips that my Mom used to like.
And I turned to Kai and said, my Mom used to like these. And he said, ‘that’s sick’. And we continued.”
They both laughed a bit at that. Cole keeps sipping his tea like everything is ordinary, like this isn’t the first he has brought up his mother on his own accord to Sensei.
Wu stops, putting down his tea cup. “Your mother - she was an extraordinary woman. But then again you already knew that.”
He leans in, eyes shining a little. “What was she like before me?”
“She was the kind of woman who had everybody's attention when she spoke because she always had something important to say. I remember her being a fast learner. She cared about justice, she cared about it deeply. Used to go into the city for silent protests and drag us along with her. She loved writing. Would fill up a new notebook every month with the amount she wrote.”
He smiles, traces of bittersweetness. “She was the rock of our team. When I first started training you and watched the way you interacted with the others, I was taken aback by how similar you were.”
“But then again, you are Lilly’s son after all.”
Cole smiles at him.
It hurts.
It is an overwhelming pain to face especially after burying it for so long.
But the world keeps moving. And so will Cole.
They sit in content quiet again, the tea warm down his throat.
“Isn’t it cool that even as life moves on day by day I get to have her with me everywhere?”
Wu’s tea cup is empty and he puts it aside. “It is. She would be so proud of you.”
Cole springs forward and hugs him then, squeezing him tight. “Thank you. For - for everything. Even back then.”
He moves back then, blinking back tears, and opens the door, instantly met with Jay and Lloyd tearing down the hall fighting about something and something settles in his chest.
He got to carry lots with him everywhere he went. Family, both old and new.
…
The breeze felt extra good today and Cole didn’t know if that was some kind of sign but he was taking it as one.
Her grave was at the very end of the row. The pebbles crunched under his feet on the path. It felt like walking through a passage of time.
It had been so, so long since he had been here.
“I’m going to see my Mom.” he had said across the breakfast table that morning when asked what he was doing today.
And it was true. It was also true that ‘going to see my Mom’ meant going to a row of graves and sitting on grass and layering flowers on headstones instead of going to his childhood home and walking into his Mom’s arms.
His Mom would never stand in the doorway with her arms open again.
She would never brighten when he entered a room.
Well maybe she still did brighten when she saw him, but he just no longer had the honor of seeing her reaction anymore.
“That sounds lovely.” Zane had smiled at him and casually passed him the bowl of berries and it made him feel like the choice of words mattered, like going to see his Mom was what he was doing.
He got suddenly nervous then. “Jay is coming with me.”
They hadn’t talked about this but Jay didn’t even bat an eye, just nodded as if this was their plan today all along and continued trying to wrestle the can of whipped cream from Lloyd.
After breakfast they went to the farmers market to buy flowers.
He had frozen in front of the stand when the lady asked him what he wanted but Jay had kept it moving. Picked out a bouquet of lilies the color of ivory, paid the lady with a smile, and put the bouquet in Cole’s hand seamlessly.
The headstone with her name curved and engraved along the top comes into view.
He swallows hard.
Then he sits down, crosslegged on the grass in front of it.
Jay does the same beside him, mirroring him.
“Hi Mom. Happy belated Mothers Day.”
There is obviously no response and something is tightening in his throat but he forces himself to keep going.
“I wanted to come by and bring you flowers. They’re lilies. Your favorite.” Tears rush into the corners of his eyes but he doesn’t fight it. He lets them come.
“Um, a lot has happened. I thought it would be cool if we could talk or something.”
So he talks. He talks about Shintaro and about Prime Empire and about the Never-Realm. He talks about pancake breakfasts when they go all out and get every type of berry possible and movie nights when they end up fighting over what to watch and finish the popcorn before they even start.
And Cole was not a talker but for his Mom he doesn’t mind being one.
When he gets to the end, he lays the lilies around the sides of the grave. They shine, pearly white, in the wisps of present sunlight and it all looks and feels very serene.
Then he lets Jay lead him out of there, past the rows of graves, past the patch of wildflowers, past the gravel, into the parking lot.
They sit in complete silence in the car for a few minutes, something rarely done with Jay, but Cole feels a rush of gratitude towards him in that moment even though he can't really look him in the eye right now. Not just for this but for everything.
“Do you think they were friends?” He mumbles, halfway through the drive. “Our Moms.”
“I think so.”
He turns away from the window to look at Jay instead. “Best friends?”
Jay cracks a smile. “Maybe. But not as good as us.”
Cole smiles too. “Nah definitely not.”
‘I wish we could tell them. That we’re okay. That we’re together.’ Cole opens his mouth to say but it’s stuck, somewhere between his throat and his heart.
“I think they know that we’re together.” Jay glances at his face through the rearview mirror, reading his mind crystal clear. “I think they had faith we would find our way to each other. And we did.”
Cole doesn’t say anything in response, and he waits until the Monastery to come into view before talking again. “Thanks for coming with me today.”
“Literally anytime.”
…
Cole’s heart is beating weirdly in his chest when he rings the doorbell.
“Cole!” His father beams when he opens the door. “This is a nice surprise.”
Cole smiles nervously. “Hi Dad. I’m sorry I didn’t call but I remember you saying a couple weeks ago you didn’t have anything going on this weekend.”
His Dad returns the smile. “Well I’m glad to see you. I was just about to pack up lunch but why don’t you come in and I’ll make you a sandwich?”
Cole takes a deep breath, trying to calm down a little. “Actually Dad, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to um, to go visit Mom’s grave?”
…
“Cole.”
Cole muffles a groan as a little hand shakes his arm. “Yes?”
Fritz is leaning over him, his eyes wide and unfocused. “I can’t sleep.”
“Do you want to get in here?”
He nods and Cole moves aside to let him climb in next to him, pulling the blanket up.
Fritz looks over his shoulder. “Is Geo awake?”
“No. It's 3am. He’s sleeping.”
Fritz giggles at his dry tone and Cole can’t help cracking an exhausted half smile.
“I’m not sleepy.”
“Yes you are.”
“No.”
“Mmm, yeah.” Cole drags him closer to him, tucking him under his chin. “Everyone is sleepy right now. Sleep is very important.”
He pouts into Cole’s chest. “Is that why I hafta go to bed at 8:30?”
“Exactly.”
“But how come you don’t have a bedtime! It's not fair!”
“Shh.” Cole hushes him when Geo shifts over in his sleep. “And I did. I had a bedtime when I was your age. My Mom made me go to sleep by 8. So do you want me to change yours to 8?”
He starts wriggling around but Cole holds him in place. “Nooo. That’s too early.”
“Well okay then.”
A few minutes pass and Cole holds his breath that he’s fallen asleep but then he talks again. “Cole?”
“Hmm?”
“You have a Mom? Where is she?”
Cole almost hesitates but then he stops. “Well I did. She passed away a very long time ago.”
“Oh.” Fritz goes really quiet, thinking in that way kids do, and Cole is afraid he’s said too much. “Was she cool?”
“Very cool. She was strong and brave.”
“Like you!”
Cole smiles a proper smile this time. “And you.”
“And me. And Spitz. And Geo. And Bonzle.” He tugs on Cole’s sleeve. “What did she like?”
“Lots of things. She liked marshmallows and the color green and dandelions and mountains and frogs.”
“Ooh I like frogs!”
“That’s true.”
“And I like blowing dandelions and making a wish.” He yawns. “Tomorrow will you tell me more about her?”
Cole kisses the side of his head as his eyes start drifting shut. “If you’d like.”
“And Spitz too?”
“Yes, him too.”
His breathing slows down and Cole can tell he’s almost asleep when he weakly tugs on his sleeve again. “Cole?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too kiddo.”