YOU CAN KEEP THEM

She will tell her parents a half-truth: that her trip to East Tennessee is a vacation.

When pressed for details on the boy (man, actually) she plans to visit, she may insist that there is no agenda with two friends reconvening for a while; she may insist on repeating the expression “trial phase” – a term of speech they use to indicate a fear of dipping their feet into deep waters.

She will tell her parents yes, she’s aware her two boys have to accompany her, aware of the scrutiny she’d face from strangers when they gazed upon this Tennessee resident, and then her two kids—the loud physical incongruities there. She may say it’s vital for him to see how she appears now compared to what he once saw of her, to acknowledge this hard turn from nostalgia; or she may simply eschew the explanations, that the boys are also in severe need of a getaway.

The conversation will seem stilted when they meet at the airport, communication akin to middle school lovers fumbling through speech – their curiosity and lust billowing out in tandem; perhaps it’ll be his individual choke-up, her latest iteration as vibrant as he remembered, but, simultaneously, all her parts altered by time and children; or how he’s grown into his looks, unchecked waves of curly hair making him appear somehow younger than before, back when he was so consumed about being older.

“You came. You actually came,” he will tell her.

Her response(s): “I did, yes,” or “I am finally here,” or “I had to.”

I did this to them. Me.

Holding hands will overclock his bearings, the sensuality of swinging his arm back and forth; prying obligations may weave into their moment too, though, into their hands: for him, to hold her four-year-old son’s hand, this tiny stranger, because the circumstance requires it of him; for her, to push the stroller down McGhee-Tyson airport to the escalator up ahead, with the knowledge that she cannot ride it down to luggage claim – the rules have told her so.

“You have the entire week?”

He will reply: “Cleared out my whole schedule for you guys” or “Still up in the air; I may have a few jobs to do around town”.

Even before announcing to her parents, she will worry over the repercussions of this “vacation”. The best case scenario will be a new worry altogether: their working out.

The love here is difficult to convey accurately, truthfully.

Her oldest is a diagnosed Autistic, the sneaky high-functioning type, easily disguisable as a neuro-typical young boy. She dotes on him to extremes, thinking she’s to blame for his loosely organized chromosomes, that society watches her every move with him in judgment, marking tallies in appropriate columns. The love is complex (I have made all her loves complex) – an irreversible affinity towards something she’ll never truly understand. She literally gave birth to irrationality, she thinks, a piece of her she could’ve kept locked away with closed legs, but now, with him out and talking in coherent sentences – gone are the days of babbling – she has to keep faith in motherhood, to not detach days where he only communicates choice mantras that mean nothing (“We can play this one tomorrow, okay?”) or when he strikes his infant sibling in the face, not recognizing what’s wrong.

The Tennessean will have no reference point with these children, having to rely chiefly on her instruction. There is the possibility these two strangers (or perhaps three, they both worry) will enter the house and be welcomed  by blameless rejection – the host that refuses a skin transplant, though it seems as if the sebum, follicles, and melanin are in sync. No one stays the same, not ever. Not here, especially.

Delayed, she will announce, “these are my two boys,” even as her out-of-state host holds her oldest by the hand; her declaration an inarguable fact; or she may broach the subject jokingly, an open show that there might be influence, yes, but not in any sort of pressuring way; or she may say this while scrolling through pictures on her phone, having persuaded her mother to take care of them, truly fulfilling the vacation aspect of the trip.

Admittedly, this story would be incomplete if I kept her kids in Florida; no, the boys accompany her, surely. Both these characters need to be tested.

“How was the flight?”

“Pretty uneventful, except,” she will say, pointing to her stroller, “that this one didn’t know what to make of the rough landing.”

“New experiences all around.”

Securing the boys in the backseat of the truck takes rigorous training, and he will wait idly, eagerly holding a car seat like someone with a return receipt. She scrambles carefully: fasteners that latch over and under and across, harnesses snapped tight on the sternum, the seat belt skillfully tangled to preserve their stillness – the mania of child safety. Her focus is narrowed, forgetting that he stands there. He’ll hold seat and child, one to each hand, while holding himself, waiting to help.

Once everyone is secure, he will extend his arm across the cab, traversing the console’s hump, palm open; she might accept it. If she does, it will only be on the level of holding it. Despite the intimacy, she’ll periodically dart her head back to ensure both of her boys haven’t escaped. The backseat doors have specific locks made for this very worry. He will drive the right-hand lane all the way home.

Everyone in their appropriate hemispheres: adults soaking in the overdrawn silence, perpetuating; the youngest in the back gurgling, figuring out how to remove his shoes; the oldest singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” even as the CD switches tracks, moves on. All the way home.

“He’s faster than he looks. Trust me,” she warns as he props a baby gate to block the basement stairs. They’ve both acquainted themselves with images of his one-year-old body bouncing down the steps, each step a meeting place to break bones. The tour of the house will be half-hearted, rushed, interrupted. Some doors to rooms will remain closed the entirety of the vacation.

She stands in the doorway to his room, just as someone who overlooks the hang of a great cliff, fantasizes the morbid scene of tumbling down jagged buttes and slopes.

He notices her: “Are you alright?”

There are multiple answers to this question, even without my assistance.

They will both cook simultaneously in the kitchen, each given a burner. He cooks their dinner, and she cooks her children’s. The boys’ diets are uniquely different, caseins and phenols omitted to assuage the behavior of her son’s mental condition. When complete, her food looks like any other prepared meal, indistinguishable at the surface.

The frenzied motions of whatever he’s cooking – a risotto? an orange béarnaise? Noodles ‘n oodles? – will give the appearance of finicky time requirements, as if it were crucial to coalesce ingredients while still hot and pliable. It’s not though; he will have more than enough breathing room to do as he pleases.

Brush ups occur in front of the oven, their paths converging; she may move entirely past him, her only priority the cumin on the rack; she may run her hand across his torso like an intermittent sound wave, out as fast as in; or she may halt him and herself in place, and kiss him directly, unscripted.

None of it will be unscripted, however – I want these two to be together, but I haven’t figured out which way is most appropriate.

What is appropriate?

The oldest will test them: he will waddle into the kitchen, brain attracted to the onomatopoetic noises, and grab the sizzling pan by its outer lip – not the handle – sloshing contents back and forth, before it all comes down to the tile floor. It barely misses his gorgeous blond head somehow (I know how), upside down, housing a farrago of seared vegetables.

More motion: she will prod every part of her child to ensure his pale skin isn’t rioting against itself; she may drag him by the blisters to keep him focused and acute to his error and explain monosyllabically the level of hurt he could’ve inflicted upon himself, and how this would’ve caused Mommy to cry, cry, cry; there is also another scenario where she seizes, and see the cook grieve his hard work by throttling the boy’s shoulders, forcing him to listen to unreasonable volumes: “What have you done? Why did you do this? Do you understand what I am saying to you? Which sends him inward to a place that doesn’t hurt his ears.

I didn’t know he had that in him – is it appropriate?

The mock family scene will be their bathing together – her hunching over her youngest, lathering half in the stream; her other boy toasting to everyone with a shampoo cap overfilled with the drops that roll off Mommy’s body. He’ll lift his cap after each gulp, looking for the permission to sup again.

Mommy’s nudity is displayed, all parts bare and present, but he will notice that the nudity belongs to a mother; she will perpetuate this by playfully averting from his own nude body, looking away with a full turn, her back to their libidos. The disappointment will be sudden when she stares over her shoulder to realize her tactic has worked too efficiently – that he’ll be caught staring down at the honey-colored curls of the infant, and not at her own hair draped down the rungs of her spine.

I do not want him to read stories to the boys.

In bed, the attraction is unavoidable, their limbs overlapping like a medical experiment gone awry – arms attached to torsos, knees in waists, hips that sprout clavicles. She will kiss him, unfamiliar triggers that scare her enough to repeat. She must imbibe; she may later feel skeptical for indulging, not knowing what the misfires mean; she may hold herself at fault for the subsequent trouble that follows, always follows, when she does this to herself; or she may imbibe and explain the sensations away – I am nervous because this is all so new; there’s a lot at stake here; I don’t really know him or myself anymore – but in every case, she imbibes.

The darkness of the room will cloud angles, bodies primarily relying on one sense. It will be when he feels most connected to her, when there’s no need to analyze how much can be extracted from the nostalgia, how much is salvageable. Neither can see each other.

No one will see the elements of the environment swirl awake, like silt being disturbed, but they will hear it. The youngest will regain consciousness inside a Pack ‘n Play prison, not the least bit crib-trained, not the least bit tolerant to isolation. He will realize how utterly trapped he’s become in the interim, pounding against mesh walls, shrieking to be held and rocked back into drowsy comfort.

It will be this moment that sends her atop the boy (man), straddling him, an exertion of control, finally; pressing his chest down to bury him into the memory foam, his body sinking towards the center of the Earth. Her position – afloat, bobbing, superior – implies that she will not go down with him.

It is dark, though.

With his droning, she may heed him to immediacy, her sweat drenching his curls, pushing him to her chest as if to get him to nurse complacently; she may choose to ignore her youngest altogether, and just listen to him cry openly; or she may do just the same, alone, concealed in her lover’s chest, a hole reopened when pushing. He will think her sharp, short breaths are linked to orgasm.

I do not know what they will do tomorrow – I have chosen not to write that part.

{Luke Emile Williams is a senior at UT majoring in creative writing. With this degree, he hopes that people will mistake him for someone who knows where to score pot. He enjoys hip-hop dancing, Kix cereal (no, seriously), stand-up jet skis, and America. He hopes one day to own a Street Fighter II pinball machine.}