As Hugo and Kevin chopped a variety of veggies to wrap in foil packets for the grill and Summer added seasoning, the adults took some time getting to know each other, covering what they did for work and fun as well as where they were originally from. They inevitably tried to play
Six Degrees of Separation
with the people they knew from the various towns in Minnesota they’d each lived in over the years but could only come up with one connection which seemed to be at least eight degrees away. Unless you counted Myles, but they didn’t.
“I should get Brooke and Finn down here. I put in
The Princess Bride
so we could have a few uninterrupted adult minutes. You ready to meet them?” he directed at Hugo and Hugo alone.
He finished a swallow of wine and nodded. “Sure.”
Kevin climbed the stairs two at a time, Hugo watching after him, unable to keep from noticing how Kevin’s pants seemed to hug him in all the right places. And the bare feet on the wooden stairs distracted him again, so he missed Summer’s patter of conversation beside him. Kevin disappeared around the corner, no longer visible from the dining area where they were now seated. Hugo’s knee started bouncing, and Summer pressed a warm, calming hand to it.
“You’re not here on an interview to be their dad, okay?” she reminded him. “You’re just an old friend. Nothing else, so don’t work yourself up.”
“You’re right,” he whispered. “You’re always right.” He took a deep breath and slowly let it out through his nose, relaxing the muscles in his neck at the same time. With all the thinking he’d done in the last day about their past, his feelings for Kevin seemed to be reignited and burning white-hot, but he couldn’t get ahead of himself. “What do you think so far?” he asked, beyond curious.
“He’s hot and nice. His smile is amazing, and so are his gray eyes.”
Gray, ringed in midnight
, he thought and was glad he’d kept his description to himself. “Okay, I already know all that. What do you think of
him
?”
“So far, so good. He seems… kind, warm. But I’m withholding my judgment like you asked me to. I’m going to give him the whole night until I’m even going to let myself go there and just be your best friend, okay?” Hugo nodded and took a quick, nervous sip. “Really, I’ve spent most of my time watching
you
, so far. Considering you haven’t seen him since you were eighteen, barring the other night, I’d think you guys had known each other forever. Well, except for the little moment you had back there where you were drooling over him.”
Hugo threw a cocktail napkin at Summer’s face and shook his head, ready to start berating her for being too harsh when a tall but slight girl with waist-length dark hair slowly walked down the stairs as if she had just woken up from a nap. Behind her, following quickly, was a cherubic-faced, strawberry-blond boy who easily overtook her. Kevin trotted down in bouncy movements to land at the bottom of the stairs at the same time as the girl.
“Brooke and Finn, I’d like you to meet my good friend Hugo and his friend Summer.”
The children were very polite, saying, “Pleased to meet you,” in unison.
Obviously Kevin’s father had ingrained good manners into these kids before he died. More likely, it was Kevin and his ex
, Hugo corrected his thoughts. Kevin rested his large hands on his kids’ shoulders in what seemed like a comforting gesture and gently squeezed when they spoke. All his motions did was distract Hugo from the children and draw all attention to Kevin’s hands. When had they gotten to be so big? The sight took his mind to dirty places it shouldn’t be while meeting children.
Hugo returned to pleasantries as best he could but was more than relieved when the teacher side of Summer came out, naturally moving the conversation on to things the kids were engaged in. It was as if a switch had been flipped, and Kevin’s kids came to life, talking animatedly and pulling Summer into the backyard to show her their sea glass collection.
“Sea glass?” Hugo asked Kevin skeptically. “Don’t you need a sea for that?”
“It’s just tumbled glass they find washed up on the beach. They love the stuff, and we spent most of today digging in the sand. I think Brooke wants to make some jewelry for her friend. Something about BFF necklaces, whatever those are. Finn just likes to dig in the sand and water. He’d be just as happy finding fish skeletons and chunks of concrete.”
“Best friends forever,” Hugo informed, but Kevin looked at him with a very puzzled expression on his face. “BFF means ‘best friends forever.’ Just thought I’d help decode the kid-speak for you.”
“Thanks. They say things I have no clue about sometimes. Well, at least Brooke does. Finn isn’t quite there yet, but Brooke is using abbreviations that make no sense to me half the time. I just figured out what ‘LOL’ meant on our drive back to the lake.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’m kinda pathetic when it comes to pop culture.”
“Well, I can help with that,” Hugo flirted, smiling over his wine glass as he took another sip. “They seem like great kids. I have two nieces. The youngest is about Brooke’s age, but the oldest is getting into the testy teen years. Nothing seems to please her unless it’s related to technology. Sometimes I just end up texting her while in the same room to draw her out. It’s unconventional, but worth doing to be a part of her life.”
“Do you see them much?”
“Yeah. Quite often. Charisse and her family live in Robbinsdale, right on Twin Lake. I’m their unofficial baby-sitter and chauffeur when she or her husband needs help. They’re almost too old for a baby-sitter now, but I go and hang out with them.”
“So you’re good with kids?”
“I’m… I’m good with my nieces because I know them,” Hugo answered with uncertainty in his tone due to his lack of confidence in where the conversation was going. “I mean. I don’t have a ton of experience with kids aside from the girls. It’s hard to say if I’m good with kids or not based on nieces I held before they were even an hour old. They’ve never
not
known me.”
“Well, don’t be intimidated by my kids. Brooke is a bit slow to warm up to new people, but once she does, you won’t be able to get her to stop talking about things that interest her. Not so much about herself. And Finn is pretty much a bundle of energy all the time, but easily entertained.”
“I’m sure Summer will be able to keep up with them.”
“It already looks like it. She seems to know you really well,” Kevin observed.
“Yeah. Probably better than anyone aside from my sister.”
Kevin sipped his wine and took a quick look down toward the water. Hugo looked as well and saw Summer and the kids huddled over what must’ve been the beach glass. Summer picked up a piece of something cobalt blue and held it up to the sun. Brooke’s face lit up, and Hugo watched as she animatedly told a story he couldn’t hear, but he suspected from all her pointing and mimed swimming that Brooke had seen the piece deep in the water and had to dive to get her hands on it. Summer beamed, smiling and laughing. Finn seemed to try to get in on the retelling of the story, but Brooke rolled her eyes and sat next to Summer while Finn took center stage. Hugo loved watching Summer with kids.
The Psychological Mêlée of Exes
“D
O
YOU
want to go join them or sit inside a little longer?” Kevin asked as they continued to look at Summer and the kids talking.
“Either. Though they seem to be loving the undivided attention Summer is giving them.”
“Come on, let’s sit in the living room,” Kevin suggested, leading Hugo into an airy space off the dining room where they each took a seat on a supple leather chair. One entire wall of the house was a wall of windows that looked out on the lake, so they could still see the kids. A contemporary fireplace stood in the center of the house, the dining room on the other side clearly visible through the hole of the double-sided firebox. A simple shelf skirted below the opening of the fireplace, filled with neatly stacked logs, split and ready to be burned. Above, a rustic beam was mounted to the dark-gray slate that layered its way to the high ceiling. It was lined with simple, silver picture frames and a few fat, white candles.
Hugo couldn’t help but study the photos. On the left-hand side was a photo of a beautiful woman with resplendent red hair, thick with loose waves. She looked like she belonged in a ten-page spread for high-end hair-care products. Not only that, but she had the most lovely peaches-and-cream skin Hugo had ever seen. Her eyes were turquoise, like the color of the water in photos of beaches where sands were white and words like
paradise
and
heaven
were used to describe the locale. It had to be her, Kevin’s ex.
“Is that…?” Hugo gestured toward the photograph.
“Erin. Yeah. I leave it out for the kids. They miss her when they’re away for too long, and she still uses the lake house on occasion. Plus, it didn’t feel right packing the kid’s favorite pictures of her away because it’s their house too.”
Hugo studied the other photos. There were several photos of Brooke and Finn at various ages, probably spanning most years. There was an informal shot of Kevin on what was most likely his dock laughing with his beautiful lips stretched over his perfect teeth. His eyes sparkled, his golden skin making his gray eyes seem deep set and mysterious. There was another of Erin, holding both kids on her lap, Kevin beside her with his arm comfortably around her shoulder.
Hugo didn’t know how to feel. They looked like the perfect family, and there was still photographic proof sitting around the lake house. He batted away his insecurities, reminding himself Erin was
Kevin’s
ex but not the kids’ ex-mother. And again, he was getting away from himself.
“Where did you meet?” he ventured, not sure if it was an okay question.
“Gustavus Adolphus. We met in a psychology class, and she was my best friend who quickly became a heck of a lot more. She’s a nurse. Well, she hasn’t worked as a nurse in years. She wanted to be a stay-at-home mom after the kids were born and pretty much made them her life.”
Hugo thought he heard some bitterness in there, but he wasn’t sure.
“Those most recent photos of the kids, did you hire a photographer? They’re beautiful shots.”
Kevin smiled and shook his head. “No. I took them. You remember when I started dabbling in photography in high school? I kept at it in college. I even considered a studio-art major for about three days before I knew it would never fly with Dad, but I still took photography classes.”
“How’d you manage to get that approved by him?”
“Who says he approved?” Kevin chuckled. “I told him several of my photographs had already been purchased by other students, so he saw it as a business opportunity.”
“Did you sell anything?”
“Heck no. Not then, at least.” Kevin’s laugh was full and boisterous, ending with a smile, which very slowly faded as he continued to talk. “I’ve made money since. Not that I meant to. After seeing the photos I took of the kids, my friends Mike and Dena asked me to do a shoot with their family for Christmas cards one year. I ended up working with their dogs too, and one of those shots ended up on their card. It was just this really playful, natural shot of their dogs being dogs, but soon, I was getting calls from all these people with tons of disposable income willing to pay me to come and photograph their dogs in their natural environments. It was crazy. I had no clue what to charge, so Mike sort of acted as my agent or manager or whatever.”
“Wow. Talk about serendipity,” Hugo said, wishing he had friends who could set him up in a similar manner.
“That was a while ago. I haven’t done it in ages. I still get calls from time to time. I don’t know why. I just took pictures of dogs and cats and horses doing what they do naturally.”
“Yeah, but you always had a gift with animals. Remember that kid… Ricky or Bobby or something? Remember the party where his dog started going after that shit Brad Benson? That dog was about to go for the fucker’s neck, and you stepped in and were the goddamned dog whisperer.”
“Oh, come on, Hugo,” Kevin said with modesty. “I distracted the dog with a piece of cheese, at best.”
“No. The best was when you laid into Brad and told him to leave the dog the fuck alone and to stop picking on creatures more intelligent than him.” Hugo couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up at the memory, and Kevin shook his head, unable to keep from joining in.
“That was pretty amazing. But he was being a total jerk.”
“Yeah, but you saved him from getting his face eaten off. I still can’t believe you found a way to work that into your valedictorian speech.”
Kevin buried his face in a palm, groaning. “Don’t remind me. My dad yelled at me for demeaning the kid in public.”
“Are you kidding me? That was one of the best introductions to a graduation speech I’ve ever heard—not that I’ve been to a ton, but still!”
After several anecdotes about the stupid mistakes people in their senior class had made over the last few years of high school—not naming names, of course, but everyone knew who was being talked about, and one of their classmates had yelled Brad Benson’s name—Kevin had started his speech off talking about how each and every person had to find ways to recover from mistakes and failure because every one of the students in the auditorium was going to make much bigger mistakes over the years.
“Some of us will end up addicted to drugs. Some will be in debt we can’t even fathom. Some of us will have children before we’re ready or feel totally helpless even when we did plan on that baby placed in our arms. So find a way to succeed. Find something to fill your soul with joy, something that makes you
want
to succeed. And when you can’t find that thing, make sure you have a special friend in your life.” Kevin had looked at Hugo right when he said those words, and his gaze didn’t wander until he was done speaking. “Find that person who will allow you to be yourself, who will allow you to crumble and fall apart and cry into his or her shoulder. Find that person who will help you put yourself back together so you can get out there again and make even more mistakes. Because every mistake teaches us something new. About how something works. About other people. About ourselves. And nothing,
nothing
in this world is more valuable than those people who can make you see the good inside, even when you’ve failed.”