Afternoon

I get up late on Mondays. I get my son Sunday through Tuesday and every other Wednesday, and while he’s gone I put in about 50 hours at two jobs in three days. It pays the bills but it catches up with me every Monday morning.


It’s worth it, though.


We go on “bentures” half the week together. Yesterday we went to a film shoot I was in and I took him to the movies after. He’s really my best friend.

Mondays I wake up with Harrison sleeping next to me. He arrives at some point of the night, most every night, half the time without me remembering exactly when. We have three or four long, most one-sided conversations before 10 AM, myself horizontal the whole time, my eyes half shut.


He’s five now, but smarter than many kids twice his age, I feel. The things he knows, the imagination on this kid. He is so my son.


I get out of bed four or five times, to change him, get him breakfast, get snacks, and help him set up his toys or whatever he wants to do. I have this supernatural ability to be completely aware of what he is doing at all times, even while laying down in the other room. It’s a single parent thing: a sixth sense that is a combination of all the senses.


He comes over to hug me every so often and tell me what he’s doing. He’s so proud, it’s so cute. I ask him what he wants to do today. He says, “I don’t know.” I tell him “I just wanna be with you.” He says the same.

We are alone together.


Later on we will leave the apartment and do something fun.

He goes back to the living room. Certain moments of my life run through my head, back and forth, and intertwine. This lasts for an indefinite amount of time.


I clear the notifications on my phone (and in my head) and put on some jazz. When I finally get up and make my bed, the words “this is what depression looks like” run so hard through my mind they come out my mouth in a whisper.

I put on my robe and turn off the A/C.


I put on hot water for tea and start making some health food shit in the blender.


He is perched on the edge of the couch watching cartoons; not sitting, his butt is on the very edge, his leg holding himself up from a coffee table. He’s smiling and laughing at the skit.

I look at him for a long moment, then I go over and hug him and bury my nose in his long “I don’t want a haircut” hair. I tell him that he’s so smart and he’s my good boy and that I love him more than anything, just in case he didn’t know.