Chapter Two

The room was quiet, the only sound coming from a tiny oscillating fan in the corner. It was hard at work, but it did nothing to soothe the heated tension between Chris and a woman who refused to be called anything other than Mrs. Carter. Her blonde hair was pinned tightly to her head and wrapped in a bun, her nose pointed in the air as her hands rested in her lap, smoothing over the fabric of her designer dress. Beside her stood her son, whose dark eyes were shooting nasty glares across the room at Ty.

“I simply do not see why I must be dragged down here in the middle of the day because this man,” Mrs. Carter carelessly waved her hand in Chris's general direction, “cannot control his son. I have a million other things that I could be doing right now.”

“It wouldn't be necessary if your son didn't say things to provoke him,” Chris retorted, shifting angrily in his seat. “Things, by the way, which I'm certain he didn't just come up with on his own. Actually, it seems more likely that he heard them from you.”

Mrs. Carter took a momentary break from staring at the ceiling in pompous disgust to gaze threateningly at Chris. “How I raise my child is none of your concern,” she slowly said, making sure to emphasize every other syllable. Then, without moving, she continued, “And I have already spoken to him about repeating the things he hears, isn't that right Daren?”

The little boy nodded his head firmly, though his mother could not see, and said, “Yes, mum.”

“Oh, then it's all OK,” Chris sarcastically replied.

“Yes, well, I am assuming it is far more than what you have done with that child of yours.” As she finished speaking, Mrs. Carter flicked her head back again. And while he thought himself to be a reasonably calm guy, Chris was finding that he had very little patience for this woman. In a way, she reminded him of every one of the people he knew growing up, all of his parents' friends who definitely would have looked down on him exactly as she did.

“Ty apologized,” Chris defensively said. “I didn't hear the same thing coming from Daren.”

“That is because I did not raise my son to apologize when he need not do so–”

“Are you kidding me?” Chris was shouting now, despite all his efforts not to. “You know, it's really not like Ty just walked up to him and decided, 'Oh, I think I'll hit this kid. Sounds good.' He was being harassed!”

“Harassed?” Mrs. Carter incredulously repeated, now also shouting. The principal, who had been seated at his desk, but had not said one word since the very beginning of the meeting, cleared his throat, only to be completely ignored by the two parties. “I hope you are not suggesting that my dear Daren did anything to deserve the injuries he sustained.”

Almost as if it was required of them, both Chris and Mrs. Carter hopped up from their seats, though they pointedly kept their distance from each other. “Oh, what injuries? A bruise?”

“I will have you know that I had to take poor Daren to see the doctor after what your monster of a son did to him!”

Chris took in as much air as he could, overfilling his lungs with oxygen, and prepared to yell as much as needed, but he was prevented from doing so. “Enough!” the principal finally spoke, his voice not very loud over the other noise, although he hollered as loudly as possible. “Can we please just settle down?” Chris took another deep breath, Mrs. Carter pursed her lips. For a few brief moments, the room was silent again.

“You know,” Mrs. Carter quietly began, “it really is a wonder they even allow people like you to have children in the first place.”

Then, as if every other word that had come out of her mouth hadn't been enough, Chris finally lost the one bit of stability he had been desperately clinging to. But instead of being angry, he was upset, and it felt like this woman had just ripped his heart out. To even suggest that he wasn't good enough to take care of his son –

“STOP IT!”

Every head in the room turned; it was not very usual for such a monstrous voice to be produced by such a small child. Ty stood behind his father, his chest heaving and his fists clenched, but after a moment he walked around to face Mrs. Carter.

“Stop saying mean things to my daddy, OK?” he emphatically told her. “He is a very nice man.”

At first, Mrs. Carter seemed a little put off by a five-year-old yelling at her, but she smiled and leaned down, speaking to him as if he were just a baby. “Your daddy is a lot of things,” she said, “I am not so sure that nice is one of them. Besides, your father looks far too young to be a good role model, let alone a good parent.”

“Mrs. Carter,” the principal intrusively said. Mrs. Carter straightened her back and gave him a dignified look. “We need to decide how to deal with this. Punishments.”

She took one last look at Ty and Chris before replying. “Let him be. It is far too much of a hassle to deal with this any further – I think I might have already developed an ulcer just from this talk – and anyway, having this poor excuse as a father must be punishment enough. Daren!” she called over her shoulder, and without even looking back to make sure her son was following her, she left the room.

After watching the two leave, Ty turned around and hugged Chris's legs. Chris, still shaken, ruffled Ty's hair a bit, then looked up at the principal.

“Well. I feel as though I should say congratulations,” the principal said to Chris. “In all of my years at this school, I have never seen the parents fight worse than the children.”

“Glad we could help,” Chris attempted to joke, but it was obvious that he wasn't exactly ready to make light of what had happened.

“Daddy, can we go home now?” Ty asked, his voice slightly muffled by the fabric of Chris's pants. Chris slid his hands under Ty's arms and lifted him up.

“Yeah, we can go,” he said. Ty leaned forward and rested his head on Chris's shoulder, and Chris placed a hand on Ty's back. He turned to the principal. “I'm sorry about all the fuss–”

“No, I apologize,” the principal said, holding up in hand in protest. “Had I known there would have been such conflict, I would have settled this with both of you separately, even though that would have been quite a hassle. Now, please, go home and enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Thanks, you too,” Chris said, giving the best polite smile he could. He tried to glimpse at Ty, but all he could see was Ty's mop of wild curls. He quickly left the room and the building in general (Tristan was not at his desk as they went by), all the while carrying Ty, who would definitely soon be much too heavy for Chris to hold for so long. His arm was already starting to ache as it was.

“You can put me down if you want, daddy,” Ty sleepily said as Chris stepped out into the parking lot. Chris laughed a little.

“It's not too far to the car, I'll just carry you,” he said. “But thanks.”

“OK.” Ty weakly lifted his head up and looked at his father. He was having quite a hard time keeping his eyes open. “Daddy, I'm tired.”

“Do you think you can stay up until we get home?” Chris asked, pushing some of Ty's curls out of his face. “I mean, you can sleep in the car if you want, but then I'm gonna have to wake you up when we get there.”

“I think I know what might help me stay up,” Ty mumbled as they stopped by the car. Ty innocently looked at Chris, but Chris could see past his cute expression. It helped that they often thought the same way.

“Let me guess – ice cream,” Chris replied. Ty stared at him for a while, but a smile cracked its way onto his face. Chris laughed and smiled back, nodding his head. “All right. But you have to promise me that you won't get it all over your face.”

“I promise, daddy,” Ty said, suddenly more awake than he was five seconds ago, his eyes rather wide and full of excitement. He put a hand proudly over his heart. “I will be the cleanest person ever in the world, and I will be even cleaner than you."

“Yeah, OK,” Chris playfully replied in disbelief. He opened the back door to the car and prepared to sit Ty in his car seat.

“I will! You think you can be cleaner than me, HMM, HMM?” Ty said in his best threatening voice, widening his already large eyes even further and shoving his face as close to Chris's as he could without bumping his nose into Chris's cheek.

Chris tried his hardest not to laugh, the serious look he put on almost painful to keep. Without saying a word, he buckled Ty in, shut the door, and sat himself down in the driver's seat. He looked up in the rear-view to see that Ty was still staring at him with impossibly large eyes.

“I will be so much cleaner, Ty,” he slowly began, “that when we're through, you're going to look like you're made entirely of dirt.” With that, Chris started the car and peeled his eyes away from the mirror. He heard Ty gasp loudly, and even though he couldn't see it, he knew that Ty was making the face he always made when he decided to prove someone wrong. His nose would crinkle and he would pout his lips. Chris had a vague recollection of doing that when he was a child.

It was definitely the face Ty was making when they arrived at the parlor some ten-odd minutes later. Chris let Ty run ahead of him a little into the shop, though in reality Ty was actually hopping rather than running. Unfortunately, he couldn't see past the counter, so he had to wait for Chris to stop beside him anyway.

As Chris stopped, he spotted a man behind the counter, leaning over one of the freezers and facing the opposite direction. “Wow, great service here. Good to see you're keeping an eye out for customers,” he said.

The man behind the counter stood up, straightened his back, and even without seeing his face Chris knew that he was annoyed. It was just the way the man always was. “Oh, Chris. Good to see you're still around,” he sneered as he turned around.

Ty suddenly began to jump up and down, desperately trying to see over the counter. “Hi... Uncle... Devon!” he shouted, stretching his little arm up as far as it would go and waving.

“Hi,” Devon distastefully replied. “What can I get for you, then?”

“I want lots of chocolate ice cream with lots of sprinkles,” Ty loudly replied, though he wasn't sure Devon could hear him since he couldn't see him. He turned to Chris and tugged on Chris's jacket. “Daddy, tell him I want lots of chocolate ice cream with lots of sprinkles.”

“All right, all right,” Chris said with a hint of laughter. “Why don't you go find a seat?”

“OK!” Ty chirped, and he ran off to a nearby booth. He sat so that he could still see his father, and as he made himself comfortable, he clasped his hands on the table's surface. For a few minutes he sat there and stared, noticing how unhappy his uncle looked. But Devon had been that way most of the time Ty had ever seen him, and so Ty just assumed that it was just how Devon was around everyone.

A few minutes later Chris walked over carrying two medium-sized cups, both with spoons sticking straight up. He placed one in front of Ty, then sat down on the opposite side of the table. Ty was already shoving a spoonful of his ice cream into his mouth by the time Chris looked up at him.

“Thank you, daddy!” he brightly said as he dug his spoon into the cup once more.

“You're welcome,” Chris replied. He took a bite of his own ice cream, much less eager than Ty. “Was school better today than it was yesterday?”

“Um, yeah, 'cause I didn't hit anyone today,” Ty happily answered.

“Did those kids still say things to you?”

“Yeah, but I just didn't listen to them.” Ty froze for a second, stuck in spoon in his cup, and looked up at Chris. “Was that a good thing to do?”

Chris nodded. “You shouldn't let them bother you. I'll bet those kids don't even know what they're saying anyway.”

While twisting his mouth in a characteristic sort of way, Ty went back to digging into his cup. “Daddy, why does Uncle Devon always look so sad all the time?” Ty leaned over the table to the best of his ability and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Are people mean to him, too?”

“Eh, I don't think many people are mean to Devon,” Chris said. “I also don't think he looks sad, exactly. More like very annoyed that he has to deal with me. See, Devon and I have never really gotten along very well.”

“Oh.” Ty quickly consumed another spoonful. “Is he more meaner to other people, then?”

“Well, he can get very angry sometimes,” Chris slowly and carefully replied. “In fact, it's more than likely that your short temper comes from that side of the family.”

Ty seemed rather alarmed by this, his eyes becoming frightfully large as he opened his mouth in shock. “Has he hit people before also?” Ty quietly asked.

Chris winced a little, as he was reminded of his private school days, something he hadn't thought about in quite a while. “He's definitely hit at least one person. You have much better manners than he does, though. At least you apologized.”

“Uncle Devon hit someone and he didn't even apologize?” Ty asked with great disbelief. When Chris nodded firmly, Ty sat back in his seat some and slowly shook his head. “He is a bad influence.”

Chris laughed a little. “Do you even know what that means?” Ty got very excited and quickly nodded his head.

“It means that he's not such a good person, so other people shouldn't learn from what he does, 'cause what he does is sometimes bad and it's not good to learn bad things,” Ty spit out. He looked very smug after he did. Chris smiled at him.

“Well, that's quite a long-winded answer, but yeah.” Ty almost immediately frowned, losing all of the pride he had just contained.

“What's long-winded mean?” he asked.

Chris thought for a few moments. Every now and then Ty would stump him with some of his questions. “Like, really long, sort of. Your answer was very long, and it had a lot of words that you maybe didn't need,” he explained.

“Hmm, I should work on that,” Ty plainly stated. He quickly took several large bites of his ice cream. “Daddy, you are the smartest man I know.”

“You don't know very many smart people, then,” Chris joked, but it seemed to have gone over Ty's head.

“I know you,” Ty shrugged. “But as far as I am concerted, you would still be the smartest even if I knew all the smart people in the whole world.”

“Concerned,” Chris said. Ty looked at him with great confusion. “As far as you're concerned, not concerted. Concert means to plan.”

Ty stared at Chris for a while, then he sighed. “You will never believe me, will you?”

“No, I won't,” Chris simply replied, with a hint of laughter. “Now, hurry up and finish so we can go. I can feel Devon's stare piercing the back of my neck.”

Ty looked up at his uncle, who was indeed shooting death glares at Chris. Then he turned back to his father, and nodded. “Yes, sir!”

Ty quickly consumed the rest of the contents of his dish, and once he was finished he jumped out of the booth without saying a word. Chris figured that Ty was ready to leave, and his suspicions were confirmed when Ty grabbed his hand and tried to pull him up as well. Chris stood up and disposed of their empty containers before torturing Devon with a final farewell, and then actually leaving.

Ty held Chris's hand all the way to the car, even though they were parked right near the entrance. He let Chris lift him into his seat like always, and for the most part their ride home was quiet. Ty looked out the window and watched the world pass by, as he so often did, his mind just like his father's, drifting and dreaming of bigger things.

When Chris let Ty out of the car, he noticed that something seemed different. He asked Ty what was wrong, and Ty looked up at him, frowning.

“I feel sad,” he said in a sort of mumble. Chris bent down and looked carefully at Ty.

“Why do you feel sad?” Chris sympathetically asked him.

“I don't know,” Ty shrugged, though it was in the way that told Chris he really did know why. But Chris never liked to pester Ty, because he knew that Ty would always come around in the end, especially if it was something that was really bothering him.

So, Chris merely brought Ty out of the car, and the two began to make their way up to their apartment. Once inside, Ty curled himself up on the couch and just stared at the wall. Chris sat down beside him, silent.

“Do you wanna watch something?” Chris asked after a few minutes. He didn't want to bother Ty, but he wasn't sure what to do instead, either. He did have that article waiting to be written, but he wanted to make sure that his son was all right first. Ty slowly shook his head, then sighed.

“Daddy... I wish people weren't so mean to you all the time,” he quietly said, his mouth turned down in a frown that seemed to perfectly convey his feelings. “It makes me sad.”

Chris smiled just a little, both because he had been right about Ty and because it made him happy to know that Ty cared about him so much. He rarely doubted it, but it was always nice to be reassured. “I wish they weren't, too, but it's just the way things are.”

Ty looked up at his father. “Does it make you sad, too?” he inquired in a voice that suggested he didn't want to be alone in his emotions. Chris shrugged.

“I try to ignore all those people,” he told Ty. “It doesn't always work, but most of the time they don't bother me so much.”

Ty thought for a few seconds. By the way his eyes were brightening, he seemed to be feeling a little better. “So, you don't let them faze you?” he asked, looking rather impressed with himself for using one of his new words. Chris smiled again.

“Right.” Ty stretched himself out a bit and moved closer to Chris.

“Are you happy, daddy?” he quietly asked, his eyebrows drawn together. Chris appeared to have been thrown by the question. He stammered for a few seconds before even one cohesive word came out of his mouth.

“Um...” Chris had never considered himself to be an unhappy guy, per se, but now that he thought about it, he wasn't so sure that he was happy, either. And now it was taking him longer to answer than he would have liked, and he was afraid of what Ty might be thinking of his delayed reply. After all, Ty was a very intelligent little boy, and he would definitely be able to see right through Chris.

As a few seconds turned into several minutes, Chris found himself becoming even more flustered. Time seemed to make no difference to Ty, and he would have been fine sitting and watching Chris struggle to come up with an answer for hours if he had to, but after a while he realized that Chris was probably not going to finish speaking.

“I wish Jonny was here,” Ty mumbled. Chris's heart sank at the mention of Jonathan; two years later and he still hadn't fully moved on yet, making it incredibly hard for Chris to think about him, even though he did it every single day.

“You remember Jon?” Chris softly asked, trying to control the shaking in his voice. “I mean, you were kinda young.”

“I remember that when he was here, you were happy. Really happy,” Ty replied with great emphasis. He sat even closer to Chris now, his eyes large and questioning as they always were whenever he felt a thirst for knowledge. “Why did Jonny leave?”

Chris took a few moments to prepare himself. It wasn't going to be easy by any means, but he was at least grateful that Ty insisted on using the nickname his mother came up with rather than the one Chris had always used.

“Well, he went to university, and after a while... it just didn't make sense for us to – to stay together.” Chris drew in a sharp breath, hoping that his answer would be good enough. He wasn't sure that he could go into much further detail and at the same time not completely breakdown. But Ty, being the smart child he was, seemed to understand this.

“Oh... You didn't go to un-vers-ty, did you?” Ty asked. Chris nearly breathed a sigh of relief for the quick subject change, though he realized that Ty had a mind like his and at any moment it could go off-track once more and they could potentially once again touch upon Jonathan's absence from their lives.

“No, I didn't,” Chris answered, shaking his head a little.

“Why not?” Chris moved his arm and brought Ty into his lap. Ty looked very intent on finding out as much as he could about the situation.

“Because I wanted to take care of you,” Chris told him. “And I didn't have money to go anyway. But even if I had, I think this is a lot better.”

“Well, I am glad that you decided to take care of me instead,” Ty cheerfully replied, “because we have a lot of good times together. Don't we?”

“Of course we do,” Chris said, and he ruffled Ty's hair a bit. “Every day, kid.”

“Daddy, that nice man at my school, what is his name?” Chris narrowed his eyes at Ty, but ultimately told him what the man's name was. “Oh. I think you should ask Tristan if he likes you. I think he does,” Ty whispered as he cupped his hand around his mouth, as though there might have been someone else in the room who could have overheard.

“It's not that easy,” Chris said. Ty shot him a look of utter disbelief, which Chris should have discredited (because Ty clearly had no actual experience in this area), but he found himself unable to do so. Chris generally felt the need to explain himself to Ty no matter what. “Hey, it's really not! I mean, you are a very intelligent kid, but you could be wrong. And then what?”

“I don't think I'm wrong,” Ty simply stated, shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated sort of way. “Don't you want to be happy?”

“Well, yeah,” Chris quietly replied, though at that particular moment he failed to see how it was related.

“He's not Jonny, but you do look happy when you talk to him. And he looks happy when you talk to him, too.”

Ty stared pointedly at Chris for quite some time, while Chris was busy trying to think of a way to change the subject again. Plus, now that Ty seemed to be fine, he really needed to get to work.

“You know, Penny always told me that you'd be trouble once you learned to talk,” Chris said. “I really should have listened to her.”

“I wouldn't have to be trouble if you would just tell people how you feel once in a while,” Ty animatedly insisted, swinging his hands about with every word he spoke. “If you like someone, you should tell them that you like them. I don't see what is so crazy about that!”

Chris kept his eyes on Ty, just observing for a few moments. “I admire your courage,” he said, “but unfortunately you did not get that from me.”

“Oh, daddy. You will never believe me,” Ty simply replied, shaking his head in a 'that's life' sort of way. He took the liberty and quickly decided that it was time for a subject change. “I wanna watch a movie!”

“All right, go pick out what you want to watch. I'll get you something to eat and then put it on for you,” Chris told him. Ty jumped off Chris's legs and landed on the floor.

“Are you going to watch it with me?” he excitedly asked.

“I can't, I have to finish writing my article,” Chris explained. He felt bad, as Ty looked a little disappointed. “But you can watch this, and then later you and I can watch something else together. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah!!” Ty quite literally hopped over to the wall, where their collection of DVDs was resting. While Ty was carefully examining each one and trying to make a choice, Chris stood up and walked into the kitchen.

He was never really much of a cook, and as a result their refrigerator and cupboards were filled with various microwavable foods. Chris realized that this was highly unhealthy, and to balance it out he also bought a lot of fruit. Of course, with autumn drawing nearer, there was less and less to buy, but he did manage to stock up on apples.

Chris brought a bowl of sliced apples to Ty, and in return Ty handed him the movie he had finally picked. Ty took a seat on the couch as Chris set up the movie for him. In another minute, Chris walked across the room to his computer and sat down.

While he waited for the computer to start up, Chris watched the television screen behind him. Ty seemed to think that whatever was going on in the movie was hilarious. Chris smiled, amused by Ty's enthusiasm, and he turned back to the computer.

Taking a deep breath, Chris began to type the first thing he thought of. He didn't want to sit and waste time thinking what to say first to make it perfect, because he realized that if he did that, he would never get it finished in time. A rough draft would work for now; after all, the editor had a job for a reason. Chris would go back and try to fix things as well, but it was more important just to get the damn thing written first.

He was nearly finished when Ty popped up next to him. Chris noticed his presence, but he didn't react because he was on a roll and he didn't want to lose his train of thought. He wrote the last word in the paragraph, hit the return key a few times, then turned to his son.

“I'm guessing your movie's done,” he said, and Ty nodded.

“Can I watch you, daddy?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Chris had intended on going back to typing, but he sat frozen, perplexed by Ty, who had just run off into the other room. After a while he just shrugged it off, and typed some more. A few minutes later, he heard Ty, along with something scraping against the floor. “What are you doing?” he called, without looking first.

Ty was halfway between the kitchen doorway and Chris's computer, desperately trying to drag a chair that was twice the size of his body across the room. Chris couldn't help laughing, and he strode over to help. Ty refused the extra hand, though, and he made a sort of growling noise when Chris touched the chair.

“No, I wanna do it!” he insisted, and Chris immediately backed off. But he stayed nearby, just in case Ty changed his mind.

It took another minute for Ty to finally reach the computer desk. He let the chair rest almost right up against Chris's, and he climbed up with very little trouble. Chris sat down in his own seat again, and for a while he looked at Ty, who was staring at the document Chris had open on the screen.

“Daddy, what does that say?” he asked, pointing at the screen.

“Which part?” Chris replied, looking at the screen to see what Ty was asking about.

“All of it.”

Chris smiled again. “It's an article about how people seem to like movies rather than books. If you ask me, it's a pretty simple reason.”

“Why? What's the reason?” Ty inquired.

“Well, it's easier to watch something than to read. It also has to do with time,” Chris explained. “See, because people read at different speeds, so what takes me five minutes to read could take someone else ten. And maybe it'll take another person three. With film, though, it's the same length for everyone.”

“Oh. I've never read any books before,” Ty said, rather unhappily.

Chris thought for a few seconds, then he shrugged. “Well, it's OK. You're only five, and you can't read yet. No one expects you to. I've read books to you, though.”

“No, not little kid's books. I mean big people books,” Ty said.

“I could start reading big people books to you if you want,” Chris told him. Ty gasped loudly and his eyes widened, lighting up with an incredible excitement.

“Really??”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “Before you go to bed tonight, I'll get one of my books and read you, like, a chapter or something. Sound good?”

“Yes!!” Ty exclaimed, bouncing a little in his seat. “When am I going to bed?”

“Not for another five hours or so,” Chris said with a laugh. “But I only have to write roughly one more paragraph for this article, so once it's done I'll make us some dinner and we can watch a movie. What would you like to eat?”

“Um...” Ty brought his hand to his mouth and ran his finger over his lips while he thought. The moment he seemed to have come up with an idea was apparent by the way he quickly sat up and stuck his finger in the air. “We should have grilled cheese sandwiches because they are super yummy,” he said.

“Grilled cheese it is, then,” Chris said. He quickly went back to work, typing at a million miles a minute. Ty watched him, still having no clue what the strange markings on the screen meant, yet he appeared to be utterly fascinated by them. Chris was very glad to know that he and Ty seemed to have so much in common despite their also plentiful differences.

Twenty minutes later the two were in the kitchen, and Ty was trying to be as helpful as he could and was assisting Chris in his sandwich making. Ty was standing on another kitchen chair, next to both Chris and the stove, while Chris was doing his best not to start a fire.

Luckily, he managed to keep the apartment flame-free and their meal turned out to be rather delicious. They sat on the couch together afterward and watched another movie Ty had picked, and then another. Ty had asked if they could watch a third, but Chris was starting to grow tired of them and it was drawing too close to Ty's bedtime anyway.

“Then will you read to me?” Ty asked, his elation suggesting that he would much prefer this option to any other.

“All right. You go get into your pajamas, I'll get a book and meet you in your room.”

Ty was bolting down the small hallway to his room before Chris even finished speaking. Although, by the time Chris did finish speaking, he was also entering through the doorway to his own bedroom. He stared at the enormous bookcase shoved against the wall, and the second smaller one beside it. He hoped it wouldn't take too long to find something suitable enough to read to Ty.

Then he remembered a specific book, one that his brother (Alex, of course, as David had never taken much of an interest in either of his brothers, especially not Chris) had partially read to him when he was a kid. It may have been the first one that really sparked his interest in reading.

Chris grabbed the book from the shelf and headed to Ty's room. Ty was already sitting on his bed against the pillows, patiently waiting in his light blue, overly large shirt and pants that he used to sleep in. Chris sat down on the empty space to Ty's left, and Ty immediately snuggled up against him. Ty tried to rest his head on Chris's chest, but due to height differences, he actually rested his head on Chris's stomach.

“OK, daddy, you can read to me now,” Ty said. Chris smiled at him as he opened the book to the first page and began to read.

“The lights were all off,” Chris started, making sure that he spoke clearly enough for Ty to understand what he was saying, because Chris always felt that his reading voice was very different from his speaking voice and perhaps not as coherent. “The room was dark except for the tiny bit of sunlight peeking through the window, though the shades were down. It was this way every morning, as the sun tried to claw its way into every bit of the world until it all bled with light... Are you following all this?”

“Uh huh,” Ty quickly answered, trying to use this short pause to locate exactly where on the page Chris was. He figured that if he could follow along, he might eventually learn what words were which. Of course, having no knowledge of any of the words, he had no idea where Chris had stopped reading, but he continued searching nonetheless.

Ty had given up long before the chapter was over, though. “Do you want me to read more, or...” Chris began to ask, cutting himself off when he realized he wasn't going to receive an answer. He could tell just by the way Ty was breathing that he was asleep.

Chris slid out of the bed, careful not to make Ty move so much that he woke up. He made sure that Ty was laying down, and not sitting in an uncomfortable position, and he brought the blanket over his tiny body. Chris leaned over and kissed Ty on the forehead and said, “Goodnight, kid.”