On Friday afternoon, Tyson sat on the main stairs in the house, watching James haul a suitcase up the stairs from the basement and dragged it over to the door, opened it and dragged it outside and into the car. "Where are you going?" Tyson asked when James came back inside.
"Uncle Greg and I are going to go away on holiday for the weekend," James wiped the cold sweat off his brow, I just dragged a suitcase for two people for a weekend up a flight of stairs, across the house, and outside and put it in the car and I'm sweating like a pig. When did I suddenly become so damn unfit?
"I'll go pack!" Tyson jumped up.
James stopped him and frowned, "you're not coming Ty, sorry, it's an adult only trip. Uncle Greg and I are going by ourselves, you're staying here with Charlie and granddad," James pointed out as he scooped up Charlie who was ready to bolt out the front door and protested loudly when James picked her up.
"Well, where are you going?" Tyson asked, "and why can't I go?"
"We're going to see Bay City, Ty. We'll only be gone for a few days, and then we'll be back," James answered, suddenly out of breath and needing to sit down, so once he put Charlie down, who went on to tell James off before walking off, and then he dropped himself to sit a few steps below Tyson.
"Why is it an 'adult only' trip? What does that mean?" Tyson questioned.
"It means that we're going to be doing things that only adults enjoy. You won't find it fun, Ty, it's not a kid's trip," James panted.
"I like Bay City, and what do you mean 'things only adults enjoy'? What is that?" Tyson went on.
James looked over his shoulder at him, mortified that he'd somehow inadvertently found himself in a situation where a five-year-old was interrogating him, "Uncle Greg and I are going to go spend some time together, alone. No kids," James paused Tyson as he was about to begin on another tirade; "you'll understand when you're older,"
"I want to understand now," Tyson pouted, before jumping up to his feet, "I'm not a baby!"
"Tyson, you are not invited. You are not coming. You are not yet six, and I'm 42. I don't need to answer to you. You don't want or need to know or understand anything about adult time. I didn't know anything about adult time at your age either. You're not coming and that's final. We will be back on Sunday night. We aren't going to leave you, but we just need to have an adult break and enjoy ourselves," James leant up against the railing on the staircase, feeling his heart racing, and closed his eyes as his chest felt tight and painful.
"Fine, I'll go ask Uncle Greg," Tyson jumped down the last few steps and turned to face James, who was now stretched and lounging out further on the stairs, panting.
"Uncle Greg is resting… don't bother him," James continued. "Just leave him alone," but he felt too weak to do anything to physically stop Tyson, who then ran off and down the stairs to the basement.
"Uncle Greg!" Tyson yelled as ran down the stairs to the basement, "what are 'adult things'?"
"What are what?" Greg muttered in his half asleep state.
"Adult things," Tyson repeated, flicking the end of Greg's nose, who woke up and stared at him.
"Don't flick me, Tyson," Greg warned, "and you don't need to know anything about adult things right now. You're too young… Wait, who was telling you about adult things?" Greg now frowned and sat up.
"Uncle Jaime said that you and him were going to be doing 'adult things' in Bay City on the weekend, and that's why I couldn't come, but he won't tell me what 'adult things' are, he said I'll understand when I'm older and have the rest of my life to think about 'adult things'. He just said I wasn't invited. But I want to go," Tyson went on.
"He's absolutely right. You are too young to know about 'adult things', and once you do; you'll have the rest of your life to think about and do 'adult things'. For now, you just do kid stuff, okay? Where is Jaime anyway?" Greg backed James up.
"He's lying on the stairs near the front door, breathing like a dog, like this," Tyson mimicked a dog panting hard.
"Why didn't you start by telling me about that?" Greg had to work hard to reign in his anger at Tyson; trying to understand that he was only a young child and had no idea what any of it meant. Greg stood up and nearly ran up those stairs to see James slouched on the main stairs, "James!" Greg shouted, and James stirred, "what the hell happened? Are you okay?" Greg continued, rushing over to check him out.
"I'm just out of breath and had some heart palpitations so I sat down for a minute, that's all," James mumbled, "I feel better now,"
"Did you pass out? Did you take anything?" Greg insisted and James shook his head, "okay, well, get up or I'm going to ring an ambulance," to which James then hooked his hand around one of the bannisters on the stairs and pulled himself up, shaking slightly, before he let himself quickly slide back down so that he was again sitting down. "Right," Greg grumbled, "go and get Uncle Jaime a glass of juice from the kitchen. Straight juice, okay?" and Tyson ran off. "You know why this is happening, don't you, James? This has got to end,"
James shook his head, "I can't help it Greg, you know that. There's nothing I can do,"
Tyson passed the glass of juice to Greg and watched as Greg tried to pass it to James; "drink it James," and James just shook his head as though he were trying to be force fed poison, "James, you need to start cooperating with me on this, or you're going to need to be treated in hospital. This is getting to be super dangerous, and I can't deal with this alone anymore. Please, baby, just drink it," Greg's eyes filled with tears, which felt like a constant state he was in recently whenever it came to getting James to eat or to drink anything with calories in it. James looked over at Greg's face and sighed deeply as he squeezed his eyes shut and drank the juice.
"Please start to eat with us again, Uncle James," Tyson spoke up, "I'm really scared about what's going to happen to you if you don't eat. I don't want you to die too, Jaime," he whimpered.
"I'm not going to die," James muttered, "see, I drank the juice," he passed the glass back to Greg.
"My mommy died," Tyson repeated, "she didn't think she would die, but she died,"
Greg placed his hand on Tyson's shoulder to halt him, and James attempted to pull himself up again a few minutes later, "I feel less dizzy now," James mumbled, as he tried to stagger down the stairs. He leant on Greg slightly as he walked them back downstairs.