by Christina Consolino

The boy is always by himself, cast in the shadows of the oak trees or lingering near the edges of the asphalt streets, his face blank, his shoulders slumped. Today, he bikes along the sidewalk adjacent to the main road, then winds his way between the hardware store and the church, settling in the parking lot of the parish center. He balances his bicycle between his legs and grips the handles as a group of children pass the soccer ball back and forth across the withered grass. I huff from my morning run, stand by the fence. What is he thinking? What is he looking for? Why do I care so much for this boy that I barely know?

Before my life became a series of nonstop events and this boy was still in utero, his mother and I called each other friends. Thrown together in a neighborhood play group, we’d meet every two weeks for coffee, conversation, and camaraderie, serving as each other’s lifelines when mothering threatened to pull us under. Over a decade has passed; she and I no longer speak.

But I keep tabs on the boy. Not intentional, but in a neighborhood this small, it’s easy to map out a child’s schedule, especially when he and I spend so much time outside. With a running route that passes by his house and a job that keeps me in the car, not a day goes by that I don’t see him in his front yard, at the playground, near the library, or by the deli up the street. His habitual solitude seems unlike the norm for someone his age, especially in this weather. The sky is littered with colossal gray clouds, the air thick with humidity and the promise of a thunderstorm. On a Saturday morning as early as this one, it’s too bad he’s once again alone.

***

“I’ve always wanted a girl.” The mother pats her belly’s roundness, which hangs beneath the ribbon at her waist. Her fingers trail across the floral pattern in circles while her other hand presses against her back in support.

We stand near the hedge next to the sand pit, where our children build unsteady castles and shallow moats. Her two-year-old son, Brayden, hands one of my twin girls a bucket filled with water. Both girls squeal as the water sloshes over the sides and coats their pudgy hands.

My glance moves to the mother’s burgeoning bump, and I ask the most obvious question: “Are you having a girl?”

“Oh no.” She pauses and lets her gaze dance away from mine. “We didn’t find anything out at the ultrasound. I didn’t want to be disappointed.”

A feeling of heaviness engulfs me, and I swallow back a round of acid that has crept into my throat. My pregnancy with the girls was wholly unexpected—who decides to start a family while in graduate school?—but even then, despite the lack of readiness and fear of the unknown, excitement had gathered within me from the first glimpse of the pink line. I think of our mutual friend, who reported that another month has come and gone and still, her womb stands empty. That woman would be ecstatic to feel the flutter of movement inside her belly.

“Yes, ever since I was a little girl,” the mother continues, “I’ve wanted a boy and a girl. When she’s born I’ll name her Ashley. I don’t even have a boy’s name picked out.”

***

I jog in place, watch the boy for a few minutes, and continue, looking back over my shoulder. Images of my children come to mind: their stranger anxiety, hesitation to go anywhere on their own, inability to make decisions of their own. Daily, I leave them alone while I jog, but I know where they are, safe and warm inside my house.

He pedals out of the parking lot, knees pumping, jacket flying in the breeze. His face is stoic, reveals nothing. Will I see him when I stop for water at the park? Will he wave as he normally does? Will he come into view, cheeks flushed and panting with exertion, over the next hill? Does he know that I’m making sure he’s not been forgotten?

The questions pile up as quickly as the steps. I wish I could run by his house, be invisible, follow him up his driveway, through the open, screen door and into the outdated kitchen of their two-story colonial where I used to share time with his brother and mother over cups of milk, miniature car crashes, and Calico Critters. I imagine what sort of greeting he receives from his parents.

***

The wind picks up sand, swirling it into the air, causing a round of giggles to erupt from the children. I don’t ask the mother if she knows that Ashley is an English surname meaning “ash tree clearing” or that it wasn’t until the 1960s that the name became more popular for a girl than a boy in the United States. Maybe she could bring back a trend by naming her boy Ashley. Ash is a cute nickname for a boy, I think, and then swallow my words. I know, in my heart, that it’s not the name that matters.

“Boy names are difficult,” I say. “We didn’t even have a second boy’s name picked out for the twins. If they’d both been boys, we’d have had to do some quick thinking.”

She sighs, but I can tell by her eyes and the stiffness in her posture that she’s not really listening. That she’s still there, wherever there is, thinking about the lack of a boy’s name, and what will happen if the life inside her is indeed born a disappointment.

***

In my mind’s eye, the boy enters his house. Everything is silent, except for the slam of the screen door behind him. He moves across the carpet, into the kitchen, and hangs his jacket on the wooden hook near the basement door. He grabs a tall glass and holds it under the faucet, the whir of the refrigerator his only companion. Even the dogs are out, probably with his mom and dad, taking the place that should be his. The boy finishes his water and places the glass in the dishwasher, then winds his way to the back of the house. The couch beneath the enormous picture window calls to him; under the silver tones of the muted sky, he lies down and pretends the cushions are arms that wrap snugly around him.

***

It’s an unspoken rule to bring dinner to the new baby’s family, and the week after the birth, I stand on the front porch of the mother’s house, warm casserole dish nestled between my fingers. She opens the door and gestures with her hand to head back to the kitchen. I amble through the spotless foyer and place the meal on the counter, next to a loaf of fresh bread and a bunch of bright yellow bananas. Clean, blue nipples line the dish drainer and a bottle brush hangs on a nail near the sink. Knowing that she had purchased pink nipples before she delivered, I wonder about their lack of appearance.

“You look great,” I say. But she seems unfazed and too assembled to have a new baby and a toddler. The clean shoulder of her shirt where a spot of spit-up is missing glares at me, and an unnerving silence hangs in the air. I look for a pack-n-play or bassinet or bouncy seat but find nothing. Unlike my own home, in which child paraphernalia seeps onto every floor and into every corner, hers is pristine; all the baby’s things must be upstairs.

“We’re good, thanks. And thank you for bringing dinner.” Her short words indicate that that we’re finished. I do not get to see the baby or hold the baby or delight over the smell and feel of a newborn’s fuzzy head or supple skin. As I leave the house, a plastic bag catches my eye; it’s filled with pink nipples, gingham bibs, stretchy headbands. The label reads TO BE DONATED, and I think about what will happen to their baby, to the precious new baby boy whose name I don’t even know, the one who wasn’t born a girl.

***

On my next run, the boy is again on his bicycle. He rides around in circles on the uncut grass of the soccer field before moving toward the basketball court. Stopping his bike first, he leaps off the frame and leans it against the chain-link fence that separates the court from the church’s parking lot and then bends over to grab a basketball someone left behind. The ball bounces against the asphalt and the sound rushes across the parking lot, drawing me in.

As I approach, the dull look in his eyes and the slouch of his shoulders concern me. His feet scuff against the asphalt. When I’m close enough that he can discern who I am, recognition fills his gaze. He knows me, at least informally—an old acquaintance of his mother’s.

“Hey, how are you?” I step forward, but not too close. It has been a very long time since we’ve been this close, despite our frequent crisscrossing of paths.

“Fine thank you. And you?” His mother, if nothing else, taught him the art of conversation.

“I’m great, thank you. It’s a wonderful day for a basketball game, isn’t it?”

He glances at the sky, and I do the same, taking in the blue tint of the canvas, the arc of the condensation trail left by an airplane. A hopeful backdrop to a single moment in time, one that his parents should be experiencing. But I don’t know his parents anymore, and I’ve never walked in their shoes. I can stand here and judge them, their parenting, their children, but it will do no good. Instead I wait for the boy to respond.

“It is a good day. Basketball is my favorite sport.” Brightness fills his face, and he passes me the ball.

“Do you play for your school?” I send the ball right back to him.

“Nah. Mom’s been sick lately, and Dad, well, he left a few years ago.”

My gut clenches: while I might have been keeping tabs on the boy, I haven’t really been “seeing.” In my head, I file through images, missed clues: the lone car on the driveway, the overgrown ivy that winds up the fireplace, the arbor vitae in need of trimming, the newspapers piled on the driveway next to shaggy grass. I’ve done nothing to help this child or his family, just stood back and let life happen to him. To them.

“I’m sorry.” I hold the ball on my hip. For all the years I have on this child, I’m not quite sure what to say.

“It’s okay,” he says, and extends his hands. “But if you have time, I bet Mom would love to see you. She misses those play group days.”

Tears form at the back of my eyes, and I toss the ball his way. “My family thinks I’m on a long run. Let’s play a round here and then grab your Mom some cocoa from The Muffin House. What do you think?”

The boy dribbles the basketball, the sound reverberating across the lot in a happier tune this time. “That sounds great.” Then, he runs up the court.

Though I’m older than he is, I’m ready for this, and I catch up to him, holding up my hands in front of his face, careful not to make a foul. “What’s your name?” I ask. After all these years, I still don’t know what she named her baby, this boy. That fateful day when I dropped off dinner, I didn’t have the courage to ask.

“It’s Ashley,” he says. “But friends call me Asher.”

I hold out my hand. “Asher it is then.”

Image by Varun Kulkarni from Pixabay