I may go out tomorrow if I can borrow a coat to wear.

Oh, I step out in style with my sincere smile and my dancing bear.

Outrageous, alarming, courageous, charming.

-Scooter the Gopher and Fozzie Bear, Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear

Just…? What a horrible, candle-snuffing word. That's like saying 'he can't climb that mountain, he's just a man' or 'that's not a diamond, it's just a rock.' Just…

-Finding Neverland

Her Boy Dreams

The sun was baking her face where it fell in the window across the sink. It felt nice with the chill of the air-conditioning brushing against her bare legs and arms. Like the heat of the dish water her hands plunged into, searching below the bubbles for dishes among the slippery floating fragments of food; a bit of warmth. She sighed as she pulled up a dish she'd found beneath the couch while vacuuming that morning. The spoon was still glued on by the dried pool of a substance she could only guess at. Katie dropped it back in, listened to it waft to a clunking stop against the dishes at the bottom. She braced her sudsy hands on the rim of the sink and looked out into the backyard.

Her youngest, darling and dear, Benjamin played with the dog, Salmon—a shitzu—coming up to his puffed out three year old chest. So proud, so strong. What was he imagining himself now? Was he a pilot, a fireman, a rodeo rider?

He stood gesturing and gesticulating in a way that reminded her of her father, of her husband, pointing and in some way ordering the dog about. Sal, only so wise, pushed his rump to the ground and cocked his head, his eyebrows quirking, shifting the baggy black bangs in and out of his way by turns. Benj was so earnest and Sal so leery but humoring him.

Katie shook her head and wondered again what world they were in. Was Benjamin captain of the palace guard? Was Sal a Swahili speaking tribesman? Were they Lewis and Clark, Stanley and Livingston, Laurel and Hardy, Buzz and Woody? She could only stand there and wonder. The childhood joy that was her baby's mind was—for the most part—forever locked away from her. She would only guess at the world in his eyes, only be gifted with glimpses of his understanding through the small revealing things he said and did. Adults could ever only just brush against childhood again.

Her smile was sad but still indulgent. She wouldn't for the world rob her children of those too few years where there was a sea of possible rather than the very grown-up sea of impossible.

She dipped her hands again into the heated water and groped for the double-sided sponge: one brillo-esque, the other more traditional. She continued to watch Benjamin and Sal while absently swirling the suds around the dishes, cleaning effectively but in the brainless way of someone who does the same thing constantly, daily, without remarked end. Her mind, like her hands over the dishes, through the water, drifted.

She saw the dog eye the boy as he paced, his arms behind his back, watched him stop and pounce his hands on his hips and cock his head back at the dog. One expression serious and scrunched, the other open and confused. Katie watched Benj drop his assumed demeanor and run to the swing set, off in a corner, watched the pet follow, dodge around the pumping, short legs.

Suddenly they might have been cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians in a much friendlier world, one with only cap guns and suction cups on the end of arrows.

But Robin Hood and Little John romped through the forest unconcerned about the sheriff of Nottingham or their homeless, near destitute state, concerned only with whatever next adventure the wood had on offer. Robin swung around a pole-like tree trunk and lost his footing, slipping to the ground, with a laughing thud. Little John was there, licking him, tickling him with his shaggy, unkempt beard and Robin latched on, tackled the old man and when John slipped from his grasp and ran Robin was off, into the woods after him.

They dashed around the far side of the deck and behind a clump of bushes only to reemerge with Benj holding one end of something and the other clasped firmly between Sal's small, pointy teeth. Samson and the lion wrestled and lunged, each trying to take from the other, each strong and hairy, each a match for the other… for now.

And then the victor was decided, the triumphant Olympian doing his victory dance so like his big brother's, the furry loser dancing about him, nipping up, reaching for the celebratory cup in his hands.

Up on his back legs, begging with paws, the plaintive hands land on the lord's shoulders. A kind and generous nobleman the lord in turn wraps comforting arms around the poor beggar.

Only a moment or two passed before they were dancing together, the dark black fur and snarly teeth dangerous and imposing as the fearless animal tamer danced in the ring with the towering, chained beast of a bear. They were waltzing and dueling only with their eyes. Who was the master? Truly, was it the smaller, red coated man with the whip or the large snaggle-toothed man-eater? Their steps melded together in a seamless rhythm and it seemed that they were equals, each respecting and honoring the other. There must be a brand of love and esteem as the bear leaned in and licked the man's face, a wide, swath of saliva sending him into a fit of giggles and them both back into the sawdust.

Suddenly a boy, and his dog, just laughing in the grass.