kiwords

This weekend Tre got stung right next to his left eye. He’s used to being stung, shrugs it off with the steely bravado of “I’m a BEEKEEPER, Mom. We don’t care.” But stings in the tender flesh around the eye are a bit more impressive. They swell and itch and turn colors.

This morning his eye was swollen almost shut, much to his delight. He couldn’t wait to show everyone at school. “When they ask me what happened, I’m gonna say WHAT? It’s just a bee sting.” He practiced a dismissive shrug over breakfast. “Just a bee sting.”

Everyone was suitably impressed. Friends gathered around to hear the story, teachers quizzed him. “They asked me what the doctor said about when the swelling would go down! Can you imagine? The DOCTOR?”

When it was time to pick the boys up after school I made my way through a crowd of exclamations and comments. In the midst of that, I ran across the mother of one of his best friends. Their family is moving out of the state this summer, a fact I’ve been relentlessly not thinking about for weeks. Getting rid of things so you can put your house on the market? How nice, if abstract. Looking at property in Texas? Must be entertaining. Oh, look! Something shiny! Let’s not think about that messy moving nonsense, mmm’kay?

For a few years now, Tre and Peter have been getting together once a week to play. After a while Raphi and Justin, Peter’s younger brother, got in on the act. This is a fixture in their lives, what is done with their Fridays.

It is how it is.

Except now, suddenly, it’s not.

Yes, yes, I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to happen (theoretically), but see, the house is actually going on the market now. And they can’t keep regular play dates when they don’t know when a prospective buyer might want to come see the house.

So it’s over.

I haven’t told Tre, who knew it was coming…eventually.

I don’t want to tell Tre.

After that conversation, I made my way over to the family files. I leafed through all the paperwork generated by one single solitary day of school a week. The school administrator saw me standing there and started quizzing me about Tre’s eye.

No, I told her, he can’t take Benadryl, but he is taking an antihistamine for his allergies anyhow. He’ll be fine, and yes, I’m sure he’s not allergic. Right, I’ll watch out for cellulitis.

I looked and saw him across the room. He was standing there, talking to a friend, animated. He stood with feet planted, as though ready to start a race. He shifted his shoulder under the strap of his back pack and laughed at something, made a face, said something that was apparently very funny.

No, I’m not worried. I never worry that much about the hurts you can see.