Pretending

I watch as five-year-old Toby squats next to Christopher, both boys pushing fingers in dirt.  Christopher looks stocky, healthy, next to Toby.

Leaning against a maple, I pretend to be absorbed in my book.  When Toby was six months, I pretended pushing hearing aids into his ears wasn’t so bad.  At fifteen months, when he still couldn’t sit up, I pretended he preferred the closeness of being held.

The boys’ heads are bowed, and I have to strain to catch the conversation.

“Go on,” Christopher says, extending his dirt-filled palm.  “Eat it.”

Toby shakes his head.

“What are you, a sissy?”

I want to yank Toby away, but my husband’s accusation is too fresh.  Let Toby experience life, he’d said.  I grab the tree instead.

“Am not,” Toby says, his consonants blurring slightly.  His not-yet-strong legs wobble and then steady.  He reaches for the dirt.

I pretend it’s chocolate cake.

Mitzi McMahon lives near Lake Michigan in Racine, WI.  Her work has appeared in several literary journals, including The Rockford Review, Temenos, Right Hand Pointing, and Bryant Literary Review.  She blogs at mitzimcmahon-lifeinwisconsin.blogspot.com.