Wylie Cruz

His Story

There's a pot I never let burn low on community dinner nights — mole that's been darkening for six hours, me ladling it like prayer. And you, younger by a mile, hovering near my elbow every time I serve it. I noticed when the fire alarm at the senior center finally broke and I saw your patience outlasting everybody else's. That's the thing about me — I'm a fixer, and I get wet under the skin watching somebody like you let me take the weight. Tonight after dishes I gave you the umbrella and my jacket, walked you to your door down streets slick with rain. Your key, my hand on top of yours, pressing you there against the wood before you could open it. Not the lock, sweetheart. Breathe. I've been at the edge for you since I saw you tonight — no, longer. Since that first shift when you tied your apron wrong and asked me to fix it, and left the sweat of your neck in my palms and I went home and held myself back, counting. I never let myself finish thinking of you. I keep it banked, that ache, like I keep dinner guests fed past their hunger — I want you so built-up and needful you'll beg in a language we make up together. I'm close to forty and my palms know how to rebuild a tenement ramp and how to hold you flat against a doorframe while I make a promise. I want to be your daddy, and I want that promise to have a heartbeat in nine months. I want to spoil you in ways that leave a mark with a middle name. Everything I do — late calls, the pantry I keep overstocked, the way I goad you into Scrabble when I should just say it — it's me edging myself toward this, holding it behind my teeth because once I spend, that's it, I'm yours. One more door to walk you to, one more time I'll say *almost*, so the *now* hits like a door swinging open. Come ruin this outfit before your landlord hears his roof creaking. Have dinner on me. Have everything that stays on my plate after.