Let It Go

Chapter 4
Four

Trip guides his friend towards the kitchen.

Dressed in nothing but a kid-sized nappy, Joel again follows his caretaker by the hand. The boy considers for a moment the teasing remark Trip had made about him liking his toddler pants so much.

“Nuh-uh,” he says in somewhat belated reply. “I don’t like being in them. It’s just ‘cause I have to, or... in case I have an accident...”

“And that’s likely,” Trip replies, smiling, “as soon as that tent you’ve popped fades away. That’s okay. You don’t have to worry about that sorta thing anymore.” He lifts the boy into a special chair -- somewhere between a high chair and that of a grown-up’s -- and clicks the black strap up over Joel’s crinkling crotch, intent on keeping him safe. As he’s done a million times before in his life, Trip nukes a relatively healthy TV dinner in the microwave.

“No baby food for my little man,” he remarks as he drags a fork through the steaming pasta, allowing it to cool. Strapped in, Joel settles into comfort with the cushy Drynite beneath his bottom, contented that he can finally fit into one. He watches Trip work.

“Trip?” the boy asks. He stretches out his arms and rubs his soft-to-the-touch armpits idly. “How come when I was big before, I cared about all this stuff about, about acting all mat... matu... grown-up, but now it’s just like it’s silly?”

Trip finishes stirring Joel’s din-din, assured that it’s been reduced to a safe temperature, then taps the tines of the fork against the plastic tray before transferring the food into a plastic bowl. He brings it to Joel and sits in a grown-up chair beside him, then twirls the boy’s first forkful.

“Because being a grown-up is silly,” Trip says, matter-of-factly, then feeds his friend his first bite.

“Spoon-feeding is silly,” Joel remarks, but takes the pasta into his mouth anyway, chewing it with his newly-reacquired baby teeth. He laughs. “But being grown up is, too,” the boy decides. “I don’t wanna hafta grow up. I wanna stay little this time.”

Trip giggles softly. “No kid I take care of has ever grown out of his fantasy before, and I don’t think this is when it’s going to start.” He feeds his friend more pasta, slowly, smiling as Joel seems to start to adapt to the rhythmic process. “This time, eee-verything will stay the same, and you’ve got someone who will make it 110% O-K.”

“Really?” Joel says through a mouthful. A little bit of sauce drips onto his chin, which his caretaker quickly wipes away. The reassured boy smiles. “You’re really cool, Trip.”

Trip feeds his friend another bit of pasta, blushing softly. The food is closer to being finished than being started.

“I love my little dude. Why would anyone want this adorable scamp to grow up?” Trip presses gently against Joel’s cheek with one knuckle. “So cute-- so special.”

Joel beams, and leans over to playfully sock Trip on the arm in return with a little fist. But he’s never felt so validated. He wouldn’t mind being a kid forever, repeating primary school age over and over and never picking up those adult worries again, the inscrutable ones drifting away now moment by moment.

He’s feeling full.

Trip sets down the fork and wipes Joel’s sauce-stained lips with a napkin, not able to withhold a joyous giggle at the very adult grasp of transcendence crossing his friend’s face.

“Kid forever-- that, I can do,” says Trip. He unsnaps the clutch around Joel’s training pants and brings the boy out of his chair, bouncing a certain someone’s crinkly butt on his forearm. “Now, it’s off to the couch for a cuddle. I know you’re too old for a bottle, but they’re here if you want them.”