The child who did not need carrying

"I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth." — 3 John 1:4

Dan called last night, which is what Dan does. He calls on Tuesday evenings, usually around eight, after the children are settled and Beth has started whatever it is Beth starts in the evenings. I do not always know what Beth does in her evenings. Dan does not always say. But he calls, and he has called every Tuesday evening for as long as I can remember, and the fact that he calls is more important than anything we say.

He is forty-six years old and he lives in Charlotte. I still have to remind myself that Charlotte is where he lives and not just where he went. He went to Charlotte for a job and he stayed for a life and the life is a good one. Beth is good for him. The children are growing in the way children grow when nobody is watching too closely, which is to say they are growing well.

He told me Jack is swimming every day this summer. Jack turned twelve at the beginning of the month and he is the kind of boy who finds one thing and does it until August, and this summer the thing is the pool at the neighborhood rec center. Dan said Jack can hold his breath for almost a minute. He said this the way Dan says most things, which is plainly, without fanfare, the way a man reports the weather. It is eighty-two degrees. Jack can hold his breath for a minute.

I see Earl in Dan. I have said this to no one because it is the kind of thing a mother keeps to herself. It is in his shoulders. It is in the way his hands go to his sides when he is standing and listening. Dan does not know he does this. Earl did not know he did it either. The body carries what the body carries and it does not ask permission.

Dan is the child who did not need carrying. Becca needed me in her own steady way, and Hannah needed me in ways that are still unfolding, but Dan was solid from the start. He walked early. He slept through the night before either of the girls. He went to school without crying and he came home without complaint and he grew up in the house the way a tree grows in a yard, so gradually that you do not notice until one day you look up and the tree is taller than the roofline.

He is not perfect. He works too much. He does not visit as often as I would like, though he visits as often as Charlotte allows, and I have made my peace with this. When he is here he fixes things I did not ask him to fix and I let him because it is how he loves me. He tightened the porch railing last time. He checked the truck in the barn. He stood in the kitchen drinking coffee the way Earl used to stand in the kitchen drinking coffee and I did not say anything about it.

He said goodnight last night the way he always does. "Night, Mama. Love you." And I said goodnight the way I always do, and I sat in the chair for a while afterward, not because I was sad but because I was grateful.

The middle child. The quiet one. The one who calls every Tuesday and does not need to be asked.

Lord, thank you for the ones who call.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.