Dead Weight
#43 Good Luck
-/-
He has his mind made up. I sit on the grass with the transponder, clutching my one significant contribution to this whole mess. He's standing, and while he's never been tall and will never look it, he does seem larger, somehow. More intimidating. More important, like I just finally realized what a huge portion of my world he makes up. And I probably just have.
"You're sure I can't come along to help?" I ask for probably the tenth time, looking for some assurance that it's not that I'm some unloving husband refusing to save his wife, not some self-absorbed father sending my son out to war in my stead, but that I'm a helpless bystander.
"No offense, Dad, but you'll just be dead weight," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I don't want to have to worry about you and Mom, and you already did enough for us building this radio techno thing."
As if tinkering with my space toys quite compares to his death-defying stunts that he pulls every day, even though he's only fifteen, even though he's only a kid, even though he's my son and I can't understand why that became less important than saving the world. "Marco, if you can't bring Eva backā¦"
"Dad." He gives me a very level stare. "No matter what happens, if you even think about doing that thing again where you watch the TV on mute, I'm going to set that TV on fire. We're not doing that again."
Part of me wants to defend myself against that, defend my position as the infallible dad, but there's no point because it's incisively true. "No, we're not doing that again. Just be careful. Be careful, please-"
Before I can finish saying that, he's down next to me embracing me. My son, who has never been all that fond of hugging, tells me "I know what I'm doing, Dad. I've done this more times that you want to know."
I sigh. "Don't make me lose you too. Be careful. Watch your back. And bring your mother back."
He stands up, nods, and walks away to join his fellow soldiers. I look back down at the transponder and before tinkering with it some more, issue a silent prayer for him to come back alive and accompanied, and a whisper of thanks that he came back all those times before I knew to hope for his safe return.
