Chapter Sixty-Six

“My sock came off in the confusion.”

Puck told me this as he emerged from his room after unwrapping the egg roll he had managed to become in the night. He had explored alternative jams options, discarding the footies for my ancient oversized bleach-stained Budapest VBS t-shirt and way-too-small fleece-y pants… Crackers chased Puck madly through the house after a trailing kite string. We had music from Mexico that morning. Guitar.

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We couldn’t just let that sparkling blue car – that I still protest is too long, too wide, and too big – sit unused in our driveway all day. So I drove Puck to Hobby Lobby and let him marvel over the small wall of miniatures. I was sort of thinking he’d pick a small box of dishes, or pots and pans, maybe the tiny books again, or cherry pies. But, no, no. This son of mine decided on the little three-piece ceramic bathroom set for six dollars. His uncles would be proud…

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Puck’s questions carry on and on and on while we drive…

“Why is the lid on the toilet not made of plaster [ceramic]?”

“Why is that man carrying sticks in his car?”

“I wish we didn’t have gravity, you know?”

Sebastian was waiting for us at the quiet Silverspoon house. Ready for a walk, right after we went swinging in the yard…

“When you were a kid, didn’t you just love to close your eyes while you swinged?”

“I did.”

“It tickles my tummy.”

“Really?”

“Yup. I don’t know why. You know which city is my favorite?”

“Which?”

[I already knew that answer.]

“I love St. Louis! But not the neighborhoods [suburbs] of St. Louis. Just the city.”

He’s been listening to his mother too much…

“Let’s listen to the scenery, Mom. Do you hear the birds cheeping?”

“I do.”

“I’m glad God made this earf [earth], aren’t you?”

“Sure am.”

“So why is He going to destroy this one and make another?”

“Well, sin makes this earth not the best earth right now. So God is going to make a much better one. But it could look a lot like this one. We might still have big trees like this, and things like baseball games and inventing things.”

“And snowmans?”

“I hope we still have snow.”

“What about gold snowmans?” Puck grinned, sailing past me.

When we got back from the walk, Puck had his next good idea…

“Could I play toss the plank off the deck?”

“Sure…”

Naturally I turned around just in time to see him throw half a brick off instead. In what universe does a plank equal a brick?

Puck ran an hour at the park down the road with the other visitors. The little girl with ginger curls and pink eyeglasses, whose mom looked like Reese Witherspoon, as Gloria told her, whose husband was the youth director at the big church off Mid Rivers.
Four or five rounds of UNO back at the house, Puck practiced his poker face, Theodore got back, and then Andy Griffith while Gloria prepared beef and sweet potatoes for dinner. Puck proudly pointed out the fact that Snickers had joined him on the chair without his coaxing. We had a full day after all.

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Jamie Larson
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