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Matt wakes up to the crack of plastic hitting the floor, his body jumping to full awareness in the half second it takes him to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. Foggy groans behind him, rolling over to face Matt’s back, but Matt’s attention remains focused on the noises coming from beyond their bedroom: a chair dragging over the hardwood floors, the rattle of more plates, and the tread of small feet going back and forth across the kitchen. Jack.
His shoulders drop. “I’ll go see what he’s up to.” He says instead and Foggy makes an acquiescing sound, dropping back to sleep within the span of a few breaths. Matt yanks a t-shirt over his head, eases the bedroom door open and makes the short trip across the living room and into the kitchen. It’s early still, even by Jack time, but the television in the living room is still off, all his activity contained to the kitchen itself. Matt sniffs but there’s nothing in the air to suggest spilled food and none of the burners are on, so at least there’s that.
“Daddy no! It’s a surprise!” Jack shouts as soon as he spots Matt, voice coming from the direction of the countertop he’s at, higher up than usual which means he’s probably standing on the chair he dragged over. “If it’s a surprise you should lower your voice or your dad’s gonna hear you.” Matt says in a stage whisper and he hears the distinct clap of Jack slapping his hands over his mouth like it’ll retroactively lower the volume of his voice a moment ago. “Sorry.” He whispers back, only a fraction softer than before, and Matt has to bite back the laugh that rises from his belly.
“It’s okay he’s still sleeping.” Matt says and Jack nods—if Foggy were here he’d say Matt’s just adding to Jack’s misconception that Matt is some kind of all-knowing wizard, as though he doesn’t completely bank on the idea to get Jack to behave sometimes—“Do you want to tell me what you’re doing?” He tries again, hoping this time Jack will tell him.
At four Jack has taken after Foggy, happy to fill silence with endless chatter, stray thoughts, and countless questions. His favorite pastime since starting T-K has been to come home and tell Matt every detail of his day (the color of his friend’s shoelaces and how many worms he found out on the playground). When they’re together he likes to tell Matt all kinds of things, like how many stairs there are down to the subway. When he was younger he would count them out in increments of ten, back when it was the highest number he knew, and even now Jack constantly tries to beat Foggy in announcing upcoming curbs and when the cross light changes. It’s a game for him, Matt’s blindness a natural part everyday life.
It still makes Matt uncomfortable when they’re out together, because he knows people stare—they’ve been staring for what feels like his whole life now—but it’s worse when some well-intended stranger comments on how brave Matt is for being a parent when he can’t see his own child. There’s always a note of pity, sometimes voiced in the form of, “Don’t you wish you knew what he looked like?” “Don’t worry I’ll make sure to tell him in the event Jack grows another head.” Foggy usually jokes in response, more annoyed than uncomfortable. Matt knows what people say to Foggy, has been hearing it since they turned up for their first parenting class together. “Aren’t you afraid for the baby because your partner’s… blind?” Another parent had asked bluntly and Foggy’s only answer had been an overly incredulous, “He’s blind?” before he’d walked away.
One day Jack will be the one expected to answer those kinds of questions, but for now it’s the only normal he’s ever known. Matt wants it to last as long as it possibly can.
“I can’t. It’s a surprise.” The syllables in surprise are muddled together, but Jack’s tone is so firm it makes Matt reconsider the amount of time Jack spends with Karen.
“For your dad?” Matt asks coming closer.
“No, for you too. Imma make breakfast.”
Matt ends up seated at the kitchen table listening to Jack move around the room, getting bowls from the dish rack and spoons from the drawer, setting them down on the table. One in front of Matt, another to his right and another to his left. There’s a prolonged pause in Jack’s movements, and then he’s at Matt’s side again, setting something down by his hand. “Daddy, can you cut the banana?” Jack asks, “Please.” He adds, almost an afterthought.
He slides a butter knife towards Matt carefully, walking away only once he’s satisfied with the quality of Matt’s banana slicing skills. Matt listens to Jack climbing back up on to his improvised step ladder. “Not on the counter, kid.” He reminds Jack when Matt hears him start his ascent up on to the countertop. Jack’s sulking is cut short when Matt sets him down on the floor, hands secure under Jack’s arms, hoisting him a little bit higher than necessary if only to incite the excited spike of Jack’s heart that reminds Matt of when Jack was a baby and Matt would hold Jack up and suspend him in the air while he laughed. “The banana’s done.” Matt tells him, asks Jack if he can divide the banana between the waiting bowls or if he wants Matt to do it. “Me.” Jack says decisively, going back to the table. Jack counts banana slices as he drops them one by one into each bowl. Matt hears him giggles to himself when he slips one into his mouth, chewing it sloppily.
“What do you need from up here kid?” Matt asks, opening the cabinet he’s positive Jack was reaching for, follows Jack’s instructions to the letter as he tells Matt which cereal boxes to get down, feeling the braille labels on the side of each box to tell them apart. Berry. Wheat. Coco. Matt successfully curtails Jack’s intentions to make coffee by asking Jack to walk him through all the steps, from filling the coffee machine to measuring out the coffee grounds (Jack even manages to remember most of them in the right order). “Did I do good?” Matt asks once the coffee machine’s percolating. At his side Jack nods, his hair swishing over his ears where it’s getting long. Anna Nelson despairs that Jack will follow in Foggy’s footsteps if no one takes him to a barber soon. Jack pats Matt’s arm reassuringly with his banana-sticky fingers. “Yeah!” Jack’s forgotten all about keeping his voice down, which is just as well, since Matt hears the bedroom door ease open again and there’s the shuffle of Foggy’s feet down the hallway.
“What’s all this?” Foggy yawns and Jack immediately launches towards him. There’s the soft impact of Jack colliding against Foggy’s legs, the squeak of Jack bouncing on the spot until Foggy hoists him up. “I made breakfast.” Jack tells him happily.
“Oh wow.” Foggy admires, smile carrying in his voice, “You did all this by yourself?”
“Daddy helped.” Jack admits somewhat reluctantly, “It was a surprise.”
“I was surprised.” Matt says, reaching for a clean mug and pouring himself a cup of coffee, stray coffee drops hitting the heated plate of the machine, hissing and bubbling as they evaporate to nothing but a faint burnt smell. Foggy hums, shifts Jack higher and walks over to Matt, pausing in his pursuit of caffeine long enough to press a quick kiss to the side of Matt’s mouth.
“Me too Jitterbug. I’m very surprised. Thank you.”
Once they’re all seated Foggy helps Jack with the milk gallon to prevent a major spill from occurring all over their surprise breakfast. “I’m pretty sure you can get away with just eating the banana.” Foggy whispers when Jack runs out the room. Matt pushes his spoon through his bowl of over proceeded wheat and corn kernels masquerading as breakfast food. The sound it reminds him of packing peanuts. He doubts it’ll taste much better. He remembers making breakfast for Dad on mornings after fights, leaving PB&J sandwiches for him before he went to school. They were always gone when Matt came home, a foil covered plate of chicken or macaroon and cheese with hotdogs mixed in left in its place inside the refrigerator for Matt to reheat and have for dinner while he waited for his dad to come home. (After the accident the mac and cheese felt gritty in his mouth and he’d scraped more of it down the sink than he could make himself eat. After, at St. Agnes, he’d have given anything for another plate of it.)
“It’ll be fine.” He answers, cut off by Jack running back, something crinkling in his hands as he climbs into his seat again.
“Happy Dads Day.” Jack says, setting something down on the tabletop, and Foggy makes a delighted sound around a mouthful of cereal. “Aw, Matty he made us cards!” (Foggy saves everything, Jack’s work decorating his office and their bedroom and any other room with walls. Matt keeps Jack’s things too, their refrigerator covered with pictures drawn on cardstock with colored pencils, puff paint ice cream cones, chalk rubbings of leafs, an alphabet crafted out of everyday items glued into their individual shapes. ) “Mine has a fish on it.” Foggy says affectionately, “Yours has…beans?” Matt raises an eyebrow. It wouldn’t be the oddest thing Jack’s made. There was that panda phase a while back.
Jack slides Matt’s card towards him, takes Matt’s hand and lays it on the pulpy construction paper until his fingers nudge the hard bump of the bean that’s glued there.
“I made it like your books.” Jack says proudly as Matt runs his fingers along the shape of the letters. It isn’t braille but he can trace the message easily enough, the mostly straight lines of the I and the curve of a heart, the deep well of a U. D. A. D.
Matt swallows a few times before he can answer. “Thanks kid, it’s the best.” He reaches out until he connects with Jack’s slim shoulder, curves his fingers over the thin column of his neck. Matt touches his other hand to the beaming curve of Jack’s cheek and gives him a smile of his own in return. Jack is still young enough to give his affection uninhibitedly, leaning over the tabletop to smack a kiss on Matt’s cheek (sugar and sleep and Jack. His son, an impression of warmth that lingers on Matt’s cheek and spreads up and around the heart, pushing everything else aside to make more room for itself).
”Hey,” Foggy protests from Matt’s other side, “Where’s my kiss?” and then Jack’s gone, replaced only by the thin shriek of his laughter when Foggy pulls him into a hug and bombards him with kisses, tickling him as he pulls him up on to his lap.
There are a lot of things Matt questions: the fairness of the world, God’s intentions for him, his own choices. He wonders what Jack will think of him one day, years from now, whether he’ll begrudge Matt all the things he won’t do and the things he’ll do wrong and the things he’ll do because he believes they’re right.
There are the things Matt never questions: That his family is a blessing he’ll work the rest of life to earn, that he’ll fight to the death to keep them. That if he ever does wrong by Jack it’ll only be in loving him too much— after everything Matt’s love is still a selfish creature, possessive and starving from too many years with nothing to call its own—but Matt thinks it’s a lesser crime than loving him too little. He can only pray that Jack will agree.
“Y’know our kid’s pretty great.” Foggy says later, when Jack’s spread out on the living room floor with his current obsession, toy robots that turn into other robots that turn into animals. “I mean, we’re gonna have to sit him down and explain that Father’s Day is a thing that happens once a year. On an actual day, but y’know, for now I’m gonna reap the benefits of his confusion and frame my fish card. It’s got glitter scales.”
Matt’s rinsing the last of the cereal out of his bowl, soggy and bloated from sitting in the milk too long, but he’s inclined to agree.
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The End