Chin down, Kitt looked again at the picture on his tablet. Truck knew without being told the tablet wasn’t the present, the picture was. Vanna Mom and Truck. Without raising his head, he let his eyes wander across the floor, seeing Gunny stretched out flat of his back, Kitten lifted high as he swooped her side-to-side, child and man laughing. Airplane, he thought, his insides shivering, scary. Gunny’s head was in Sharon’s lap, and Cade was leaning against her Sharon Mom’s side, fingers playing with her long hair.
Cutting his gaze the other direction, he saw two pairs of socked feet resting close together on the ottoman, legs extending to the couch where Vanna Mom sat right beside Truck. His arm was around her shoulder and Kitt liked how that looked. Liked how it made him feel inside. Hot and cold, because if Vanna Mom was happy it meant he could stop worrying she would be alone. He didn’t know what to think when he woke up last night, but after seeing them dancing he knew. I see good things, he thought, twisting to look at the gangly puppy curled up beside his leg.
Kitt
Four Christmases later
Kitt glanced at his watch. Vanna Mom was late. Not frighteningly so. Not yet. But late was late and she didn’t do late. He glanced across the table to where Truck Pops sat, hand to his mug of coffee, the other holding a book flat on the table. Turning a page, he settled his hand back onto the book, then lifted the coffee, sipping without looking up. Kitt looked down at the tablet on the table in front of him, his book waiting patiently for his attention to return, no need to hold his place. Clock at the top glaring out the time.
Since anime had captured his attention two years ago, he and Truck Pops had many discussions about their favorite ways to consume information. The tablet was far superior, he thought. Better, greater, excellent, first-rate.
Stop it, he scolded himself.
Glancing around the kitchen, Kitt took in the changes in their décor, something that he would have never noticed even a year ago, unless it disturbed him. Vanna Mom had known this, had known that misaligned edges or clashing colors set up a resonance inside him, that resulting vibration making it so he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe some days, so she had kept their house a safe place. A resting place.
The walls were no longer empty. Different, he thought, but okay. He’d come home from Blackie’s last summer with a painted plate to hang. He and Randi, Blackie’s girl who was also his friend, but not his girlfriend, had painted it. Elias, who wasn’t Blackie’s son, but was Randi’s boyfriend in the way Kitt wasn’t even though Blackie said she would never be old enough to have a boyfriend, was there too, and while Kitt’s plate held a rooster, Elias’ plate was a lizard.
“I like roosters better,” he said, gaze swinging to the wall of roosters decorating the kitchen. One wall out of four, the others left bare and he was often grateful for that space to rest his eyes. But, he liked the roosters, too. “Lots of roosters.” All different kinds. Plates and plaques, iron and wood, big and small, old and new. One a clock, a feather from the rooster’s tail the sweeping minute hand, pointing out the same thing his watch and tablet had told him. “Vanna Mom’s late.”
A reassuring rumble rolled across the room, warmth settling into his chest from the care and concern carried on that wave. “She called, son. Unavoidably detained, but she’ll be here within thirty minutes of when she called. You talked to her. Twenty minutes ago. She’ll be here soon.” Truck Pops reminded him of something he should have remembered and Kitt frowned. It happened less often now, but sometimes he misplaced things like that. Chin to his chest, he looked down at the tablet, seeing it had gone to sleep. Like my brain.
A rough tap woke it, an impatient swipe unlocked it. A touch to his leg made him take a breath, only realizing then that he was holding onto the air in his lungs. Trachea, bronchus, diaphragm. Aveoli, pleura, bronchioles, lobes.
Stop it, he shouted in his head. He didn’t get as lost inside himself now, not as much as before, but it frustrated him when he couldn’t stop the thoughts from tumbling down the pathways in his mind. That touch came again, followed by a pressure on top of his thigh and he looked down, seeing mismatched eyes staring up at him. Blue and brown. Black and white. Charity.
Now his mind carried a sing-song tune with the words he spun next, but he didn’t mind these, because his friend was every one of these to him. Goodness, mercy, beauty. Kindness, compassion, love. “Love.” Easy and natural, his muscles relaxed as he lifted a hand to Charity’s head, cupping her skull in his palm, feeling the heat radiating from her brain. Her brainbox worked so hard. Eyebrows moving up and down, she kept her worried gaze on him, loose lips drooling on his jeans. I got this, he thought. I see good things, she told him without words.