1987
Jack presses his forehead to his son's head. The chubby toddler hands grab on to each side of his father's cheeks. Charlie giggles and pulls away.
"Does he even know what you're doing?" Sara asks. Mind-sharing is intense, and she isn't sure how she feels about involuntary mind sharing. She's also a little bit jealous that her husband can do mind sharing with her son, and she cannot. Even if she doesn't exactly want to admit that fact.
"I don't know," Jack says. "But he's hungry."
"'Naa's?" Jack asks. Jack has made an effort to talk out loud ever since he'd become a father.
"Jack, use full words," Sara scolds. She's never been a fan of baby talk.
"Oh, come on, that's what he calls them!"
"But that's not what the rest of the English-speaking world calls them," Sara scolds.
"Naana!" Charlie shouts in impatience.
"Yep, here we go," Jack says, trying to open the cupboard while still holding his son. Sara comes over to grab the banana, and then grabs a butter knife to cut it into child-sized pieces.
The phone rings. Sara isn't the mind reader in the family, but she doesn't need to be one in order to know what is going on.
"How long are you going to be gone?" she asks as he hangs up the phone.
"I don't even know where I am going," he says.
"Come home safe," Sara pleads with him.
He grabs onto her, and pulls her into one of their mind-sharing kisses. She shares her fear. He shares his loneliness. She wants him to quit. He wants her be ok with him continuing to have the six of the people he works with.
Then he goes over, and kneels before his son's boaster seat. Charlie's face is covered in smashed banana, but Jack kisses it anyway. "I'll see you, bud," Jack says.
Sara stands at the window until Jack is out of sight. Then she turns to her son. "We'd better get you cleaned up, little man," she mutters. As she picks him up, she suddenly feels his longing for his daddy.
Her son is a mind reader.
She isn't sure how she feels about that.
"Daddy will be home soon," she says, and she hopes that her son can't feel her worry. She hopes that her son believes it.
-0-0-0-
"Dadadadadada!" the toddler screams as he comes in the room.
Sara decides not to say anything about the mind-reading her son has developed. She wants some confirmation that she isn't just imagining things.
He picks up his son, "Buddy?" he says in surprise.
"Da!" the toddler exclaims putting his arms around him.
"I was only for a couple of days," Jack says with a giggle.
"I missed you, too," Sara says, giving him a kiss.
"So… I think we have the answer of whether or not Charlie inherited my mind reading."
"I know, he did it right after you left," Sara says.
"This is going to make raising him a bit more complicated," Jack says.
Sara is somewhat surprised that he seems to be thinking of the whole thing as negative, "It's not going to be that bad. I mean, you had to deal with it with almost no guidance. And he has someone who's already been through it to help him."
"I had plenty of guidance," Jack says defiantly, thinking of the priest.
"Right, but it will still be easier for Charlie since you've been through it."
"Yes, but it's not going to be easier for us. You probably wished that we would have a normal child."
"There is no such thing. And I am unbelievably happy with the kid I have."
Charlie pulls on Sara's pants. He thinks about a glass of milk.
"Oh no, little man. You have to use words."
He sticks out his bottom lip, and thinks harder about a glass of milk.
"Sara… we know what he wants."
"So help me Jack, our son's first language is not going to be a silent one!" Sara says.
"Milk!" Charlie demands.
"Atta boy!" Jack says, swirling over to the fridge to pour him a glass.
-0-0-0-
1991
"You promised you'd be there," Charlie whines.
"I know, buddy, and I tried. But I got called into a mission. You know how it goes," Jack says.
"You didn't even say goodbye. Usually, at least you say goodbye."
"I know, I always try to say goodbye. But this time I got called away more quickly than I usually do. I really wanted to be there for your preschool graduation."
"Why don't you sing all of your songs for Daddy? That way he can have his own private preschool graduation?"
Charlie grins, and moves to the center of the living room to begin his show.
"Thanks for letting me off the hook," Jack whispers to his wife.
"Yeah, well, you are such a great dad when you are here, I can't really blame you for how often you are gone. I know you'd be here if you could be. He just doesn't know that yet. But he will, Jack."
"I hope so," Jack says. Just then one of the songs finishes, and Jack jumps up to give his son a standing ovation.
1991
Charlie's short legs are swinging on the bench outside of the principal's office.
Jack doesn't even knock on the principal's door, because he wants to get his son's side of the story first.
"What happened?"
"She was lying," Charlie says in a pout.
"Who was?"
"The teacher."
That certainly wasn't the answer that he was expecting, "What did she lie about?"
"She was telling us about how come baby animals look like the mommy and daddy animals that they came from. And she wasn't telling the truth."
"What was the truth?" Jack asks not entirely sure that he wants to know the answer. He's starting to get the impression that whatever sent his son to the principal's office might have something to do with the birds and the bees.
"I don't know… I didn't understand the truth. It was mostly an image in her head. Something about a colorful - except the color wasn't real - and twisty tiny chemical."
"DNA?" Jack asks.
"Yes!" Charlie says triumphantly, "That is exactly the word that she thought."
"And what was the lie?" Jack asks, feeling relieved that it wasn't what he first thought it to be.
"Well, she said that there was information that went from mommies and daddies into their children. Not just in animals, but humans, too. And sometimes the information came from the mother, and sometimes it came from the dad, and sometimes it was a mix of the two."
"And then you stood up, and called the teacher a liar," Jack says, filling in the blank from an image in his son's mind.
Charlie nods, "I know that wasn't the right thing to do."
"Good, I'm glad you realized that, and your teacher didn't really lie to you."
"But what she said and what she thought wasn't the same, so that's a lie."
"No, honey, it's a simplification."
"What?"
"It means she made it simpler so that you and the other kids in your class could understand it. If she told you the whole truth you wouldn't have known what she was talking about. So she told you just a little bit of the truth, and you understood that. Right?"
Charlie nods.
"And we're going to keep our thoughts about teachers to ourselves from now on?" Jack asks.
Charlie gives his father another nod.