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elrhiarhodanTitle: Between Fathers and Sons
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG-13 (For mild references to drug use)
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Original Characters (Michael and Margaret Burke, Peter’s twin sister, Isabelle Burke), Neal Caffrey, Implied Peter/Elizabeth/Neal
Spoilers: General Spoilers for Season Six to date, Specific Spoilers for S6.02 – Return to Sender
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~3200
Beta Credit: None
Summary: Episode tag for S6.02, Return to Sender. A backstory to canon and set in the Paladin’ Verse (OT3). When Peter Burke was a very sick little boy, his father decided he needed a hobby to keep him occupied.
A/N: Written as Get Well Fic for my dearesttheatregirl7299. Feel better and come home soon!
__________________
Early Summer, 1972, Upstate New York …
“How’s Pumpkinhead feeling?” Michael kept his voice low, not wanting to wake his son.
“The poor boy – he’s all itchy now. But the fever’s broken and he was awake for most of the day today.” Margaret steered Michael back towards the kitchen. “Thank goodness Izzy wasn’t as sick. I don’t know what I would have done if they’d both gotten a bad case of chickenpox.”
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t here, sweetheart.” He kissed Margaret’s cheek, loving the warm, yeasty scent of her skin.
She hugged him tightly. “Ah, there’s nothing you could have done. You need to work – this house won’t pay for itself.”
“But it would have been easier on you if I was at home at night.”
Margaret shrugged. “Maybe, but good construction jobs are getting hard to find up here. At least you’re getting foreman’s pay.”
Michael sighed. “Sometimes I wonder just what I’m building. The city’s a cesspool – half of the building materials are stolen between the time they’re unloaded and the time the gates close. The other half is probably stolen from different job sites. And the goombas are all over the place, demanding protection money. Fucking rackets…”
“Hush, watch your language.”
Michael grimaced. Times were hard all over and all he wanted to do was provide for his family. And when everything was taken care of, when all of the bills were paid and his children were safe and asleep in their beds, he wanted go down to his basement and have a wee smoke.
But now was not the time for any such indulgence. His boy – the pride of his heart – was still sick and it cut him to the bone that he couldn’t be home to help care for him.
“Come, love – let’s go to bed. You’ll see Peter and Izzy in the morning.”
Michael let her drag him off to bed, and in truth, he wasn’t all that unwilling. The construction company was giving him fifteen a night for lodging and that didn’t go very far. He shared a room with another guy in a flophouse on the Bowery. The place reeked of misery – prostitutes and druggies and drunks littered the hallway – and the roaches fought with the rats for dominance. And then there was the dog. It wasn’t so big, but it was vicious enough to scare a grown man out of his skin.
No, Michael Burke was glad to be home. And if he had his way, he’d never leave.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Peter didn’t know which was worse: the desperate need to scratch at the scabs all over his body or the mittens his mom had taped to his hands to keep him from scratching while he was asleep. But he was awake now and needed go to the bathroom, except he couldn’t take care of his business with his hands like this.
Peter tried biting at the tape, but all he got for his efforts was a mouthful of fuzz. He had to go, though, and someone would have to deal with the mess he’d leave on the mittens. He made his way to the bathroom, rubbing at the itching scabs with the back of the mittens. The friction gave him some relief, except that the mittens were now coated with the pink concoction his mom had daubed all over his face. He probably looked like a freak.
“Hey, buddy – how are you feeling?”
A familiar and much longed for voice dragged Peter out of his misery. “Daddy!” Peter raced down the hallway into his father’s arms. “You’re home!”
Those arms wrapped around him gently. “Of course I am – I wanted to come home when you got sick. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“S’okay.” Peter buried his itchy face in his dad’s chest, forgetting for a moment how urgently he needed to go.
His dad pulled him away a little bit, so they could see eye-to-eye. “What are you doing out of bed, Pumpkinhead?”
Peter felt his face flush with embarrassment. “I gotta go.”
His father, for the moment, was ridiculously clueless. “Go where?”
Peter bit his lip. “Bathroom.”
“Ah. That’s always a good place to go when you’ve got to go.” His father stood and made a grand gesture towards the family bathroom.
“Um, Dad?”
“What, son?”
“Could you get these off me?” Peter held up his mitten covered hands.
His dad picked him up and carried him like a football into the bathroom and set him on the counter. The bright lights hurt his eyes and he blinked.
“Let’s get you sorted out.” His dad picked and pulled at the tape and Peter tried not to laugh at some of the curse words he heard him mutter. “Now, don’t you be telling your mom I said such terrible things.”
Peter smiled and didn’t care that the muscles pulled at the healing scabs and the pink residue. When his dad was stuck or frustrated with something, he spoke a little funny – like that actor in the movies.
“Ah, got that wee buggerin’ beastie!” The tape pulled free from the left-hand mitten with a fart-like sound and they both giggled. His dad made quick work of the right-hand one and lifted him off the counter. “All set!”
Peter didn’t wait for his dad to get out of the bathroom before he dashed for the toilet.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Michael, as was his habit, made breakfast for the family on Saturdays, letting Margaret sleep in. “How many pancakes do you want, Dizzy?”
“Dad – stop calling me that!” His eldest, by a mere fifteen minutes, whined her distress. “And two, please.”
“And two you shall have, princess.” Michael expertly flipped two pancakes onto a warm plate, added two rashers of bacon and some scrambled eggs before handing it to his best girl.
Peter came into the kitchen, looking like – well, something that might have been scraped off of the bottom of a shoe. The poor lad’s face was like a psychedelic pizza pie, his hair was pressed flat in all directions from too many hours of sleep, and he was desperately trying not to scratch at himself. Michael didn’t comment, and just asked, “You hungry, Pumpkinhead?”
“Not really.” The poor kid plopped himself down in the chair next to his sister.
“Ewww, you’re gross.” Isabelle pushed at Peter. “Go away – you stink.”
Michael sighed. So much for his lovely princess, who made gagging noises at Peter. “Isabelle Burke, if you can’t be nice to your brother, who’s been very sick, you can hand me your plate and go start your chores.”
His daughter scooted her chair towards the far end of the table and started shoveling food in her mouth as fast as she could.
“You okay, Peter?” Michael gently asked. On one hand, he was grateful that Isabelle only had a mild case of chickenpox – just a small rash on her belly and barely a fever to slow the little dynamo down. But on the other hand, it didn’t seem quite fair that Peter, who was so often defenseless against his twin’s tendency to ride roughshod over him, had been ten times as sick.
“I’m alright. And maybe one pancake, please?”
“That’s my boy.” Michael poured out the batter for a single pancake. After Isabelle brought her plate over to the sink and danced out of the kitchen, Michael took out his secret stash of chocolate chips and dropped a generous handful into the almost set batter.
A dollop of butter and syrup – the real stuff, not the horrible flavored sugar water that passed for syrup on the supermarket shelves – completed the dish. Michael didn’t figure that Peter would finish even half of it. “Here you go.”
Contrary to Michael’s expectations, Peter devoured the pancake and the small serving of bacon and eggs, plus a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice.
“You must be feeling better, laddie.”
Peter let out a small belch. “Yeah, dad – I think so.”
Michael made swift work of clean up. Margaret would sleep for another hour or so and he’d make her breakfast when she was ready. “Your sister might not be very diplomatic, but she does have a point. Since you’re feeling better, what would you say to a bath, Pumpkinhead?”
“Really?” His son couldn’t sound more thrilled.
Michael made a big show of feeling Peter’s forehead. “Hmm, you WANT a bath? What nine year old boy wants a bath? Are you sure you’re not feeling even sicker?”
Peter giggled and the sound was like an arrow through Michael’s heart. “Please, daddy?”
“Hmm, well, okay. Come on.”
He turned the heater on in the bathroom and set the tub to fill. There was a box of stuff on the edge of the tub – oatmeal flakes to stop the itching. “Hmm, do you need these?”
Peter scrunched up his nose. “They’re yucky. I can’t get clean and they stick all over.”
Michael tried to remember what it was like when he was a boy and had the chicken pox. The only think he could remember about bathing was that his mum wouldn’t let him have any soap. She had said it would dry out his skin. He rooted around the cabinets and found a bottle of mineral oil – no colors or perfumes to make Peter’s itchy skin itchier. He dumped a few capfuls into the water and helped the now-naked Peter into the tub. And he winced at the sight.
The lad was covered in scabs and dotted with the remnants of pink lotion – that stuff that Margaret put on the kids when they got bug bites to stop them from scratching. “You soak and take care you don’t drown yourself, okay laddie?”
Peter gave him a big grin. “Thanks, dad.”
Michael closed the bathroom door behind him and went to Peter’s room to clean it up – knowing that his son would feel better about going back to bed if the place wasn’t a mess. It was surprisingly neat – which meant that Peter had been way too sick. He stripped the bed and remade it quickly, all the while keeping an ear out for any sounds of distress.
He grabbed a clean pair of pajamas from the bureau and went back to the bathroom. Peter had managed to get most of the pink stuff off his face and chest, but there was still large swaths of it decorating his back, and he was doing his best to get it off.
“Need a hand?”
Peter nodded, “Please?”
“Lean forward.” Michael carefully washed his son’s back, doing his best not to disturb the healing scabs, but a few fell off. Margaret would probably insist on putting more of the pink stuff on, but for now, he let Peter enjoy the sensation of cleanliness.
“Come on, let’s get you out of the tub and back to bed before your mom catches us.”
Peter let out a mighty yawn and Michael decided to take matters into his own hands. He lifted his son out of the tub, dried and dressed him. Peter didn’t say a word until Michael went to put the mittens back on.
“Dad, no – please!” The poor laddie’s lips quivered and he sounded like he was about to cry. “I promise not to scratch myself.”
“Tell you what, Pumpkinhead, you let me put these on you and you take a nap. As soon as you wake up, I promise to take them off.”
“Don’t wanna nap.” Peter sniffled, rubbed his nose and reached up to scratch his scalp.
Michael took Peter’s hands. “You’ll let me put the mittens on, you’ll take a nap, and when you wake up, I’ll give you a very special present.”
Peter looked at him suspiciously. Michael knew he was a softie when it came to his children, but the one thing he never did was bribe them into good behavior.
“What sort of present?”
“I’m not telling. You’ll just have to take a nap and then find out.”
Peter’s lower lip stuck out and Michael almost gave in. His son, covered in chickenpox scabs, his damp and oily hair sticking up in a million directions, looked far too adorable for his sanity. At least he had no idea of his cuteness and how it could twist his father around his little finger.
Peter stuck out his hands and muttered “’Kay.” Michael put the mittens on, taped them around his little wrists so they wouldn’t fall off and let him back to his bedroom.
He settled his son back into bed, turned the lights off and closed the curtain. “You okay, Pumpkinhead?”
“Mmm, yeah.” Peter sounded like he half-asleep already. “Don’t forget my present, ‘kay?”
Michael leaned over and kissed his son’s forehead. “No, laddie, never.”
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Peter woke slowly to one of his most favorite sounds in the whole wide world.
And Sparky Lyle is in for Ron Gardner, who has left the mound with two men on, two outs and a two-run lead in the ninth inning of the first game of this Saturday afternoon double-header…
The Yankees were playing. Peter sat up and rubbed his eyes, wincing as the mittens scratched at his eyelids.
“You awake, Pumpkinhead?” His dad was sitting in the chair under the window. The curtain was open a little, just enough to let some light in and Peter could see the newspaper turned to the puzzle page.
“Yeah.” He yawned and stretched and then remembered. “My present!”
His dad chuckled. “Haven’t forgotten. But let’s listen to the rest of the game.”
Sparky, the Yankees’ rookie closer, shut down the Red Sox with seven pitches – two strikeouts and a sinker that tricked Carlton Fisk into an infield pop-up. Thurman Munson caught it with little effort, ending the game.
His dad turned off the radio and opened the curtains the rest of the way, flooding the room with sunlight. “You really slept, kiddo. It’s after two. Was getting a little worried there.”
Peter wasn’t sure what to say and muttered, “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You’ve been sick.”
Peter held out his mittened hands. “Take them off.”
His dad gave him that stare.
“Take them off, please?”
“That’s better. Just because you’ve been sick doesn’t mean you can’t have manners.”
The tape was removed and Peter all but flung the gloves off. “I hate them.”
“You’ll hate been all pockmarked and scarred more.” His mom has come into the bedroom and felt his forehead. “You still feel a little warm.” She reached for the thermometer that had become a bedside table fixture and popped it into his mouth.
Peter wanted to spit it out – it tasted gross. He caught his dad’s eye and tried not to giggle as he made faces behind his mother’s back. Eventually, his mom plucked the glass stick out of his mouth and walked over to the window to read it.
“Well, no fever. You must be flushed from sleep.”
“I need to use the bathroom.” He did, he really did. Plus, Peter hoped that when he got back to bed, the promised present would be waiting for him.
And it was. Someone – probably his mom – had remade the bed, fluffed the pillows and set a glass of water on the bedside table. And on the bed were two wrapped packages. Peter resisted running and tearing into them.
His dad was still in the bedroom, in the chair under the window. He smiled at Peter. “Go on, open them.”
The first one looked like a book and since Peter loved books, he opened that one first. It was also big and heavy and when he finally got the wrapping paper off, he was completely puzzled. All it said was “STAMPS” in big gold letters. And the pages inside were blank.
“Open the other one.”
He did, and that confused him even more. The box contained a set of big tweezers, a package of weird envelopes, another package with even weirder things that look like little folded pieces of cellophane. But underneath everything was a clear box of brightly colored stamps. There were probably over a hundred in there.
“Thought you and me – we’d sort through those and put them into the album. Would you like to do that?” His dad sounded a little strange – like he wasn’t all that sure it would be something he – Peter – would like to do.
But Peter did. He’d read in the Boy Scout handbook that you could get a badge for stamp collecting – not that he was a Boy Scout yet and not that he wanted to do it just to get a badge. It would mean getting to spend a lot of time with his dad and that what he liked the best. “Yeah – I would. I really would.”
“That’s great. Now, scoot over and let’s see what you’ve got there. I had the store put together a mix of foreign stamps – so we could talk about all the strange places in the world.”
Peter looked up as his dad, eyes wide. “All the places you’ve been to?”
“And then some.”
Using the tweezer, Peter picked up a stamp at random. “Where’s Magyar Posta?”
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Late Autumn, 2014, The Burke Alpaca Farm in Upstate New York
Elizabeth was in the kitchen with Peter’s mom and Mozzie, and he and Peter and Michael were in the barn. They’d paid their respects to Bruno, Lola, Blondie and the rest of the herd of alpacas, paying special attention to the three new additions – two female and one male cria – as baby alpacas were rightfully called.
“So you’re finally going to be a father.” Michael’s comment was ostensibly directed to “Pumpkinhead” but Neal could feel the older man’s speculation. He wanted to say something, just on principle, but Peter shot him a look that screamed keep your mouth shut or else. Since Neal had no desire to spend any time in the dog house, he did just that.
Peter leaned back on the ancient couch, kicked off his shoes and re-lit the joint Neal had passed to him. “It certainly seems that way.”
Now Neal couldn’t help but snicker at Peter’s blasé tone. Elizabeth was six months along and looked like she was closer to nine. Fatherhood was right around the corner.
Michael took the joint from Peter, inhaled deeply and fixed Neal with a gimlet stare. “And I suppose you’re looking forward to diaper duty, too.”
The unintentional double entendre set Neal, more than slightly stoned, off in gales of near-painful laughter, and this time both men stared at him until Peter caught the joke and started laughing, too. Michael looked particularly put out until he realized what he’d said. “Oh, right …”
They passed the joint around and enjoyed the haze.
Michael finally broke the silence. “Cumulonimbus, Have I even shown you Peter and Izzy’s baby pictures?” Over Peter’s objections, the old man got up and started perusing through the bookshelves that lined the office. “I have that album here, somewhere. “Ah – is this it?” He pulled out a worn, leather-bound book and opened it. Neal had to wonder at the strangely nostalgic expression on Michael’s face.
“Did you find it?”
“Nope – this is something different.” He handed the book to Peter. “Remember that summer, Pumpkinhead?”
Peter looked at the album and he grinned. “My stamp collection! You still have it!”
Neal recalled his derisive comments to Peter just a few months earlier and despite the giddy high, he felt a little ashamed. This was clearly something that meant a lot to both men.
He sat down next to Peter so they could both look at the book. It wasn’t anything particularly special, as stamp books went. The cover was cheap vinyl, cracked from age. The leaves were half filled with a variety of old cancelled stamps badly glued onto the page with those impossible to use cellophane hangers.
But it was something of incalculable value, something that Neal could never have and could never steal. It was a memory between a father and a son, and evidence of a deeply abiding love that Neal had never really experienced firsthand. He brushed a finger along the page and said, “Tell me about that summer…”
FIN
Author:
elrhiarhodanFandom: White Collar
Rating: PG-13 (For mild references to drug use)
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Original Characters (Michael and Margaret Burke, Peter’s twin sister, Isabelle Burke), Neal Caffrey, Implied Peter/Elizabeth/Neal
Spoilers: General Spoilers for Season Six to date, Specific Spoilers for S6.02 – Return to Sender
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~3200
Beta Credit: None
Summary: Episode tag for S6.02, Return to Sender. A backstory to canon and set in the Paladin’ Verse (OT3). When Peter Burke was a very sick little boy, his father decided he needed a hobby to keep him occupied.
A/N: Written as Get Well Fic for my dearest
theatregirl7299. Feel better and come home soon! Early Summer, 1972, Upstate New York …
“How’s Pumpkinhead feeling?” Michael kept his voice low, not wanting to wake his son.
“The poor boy – he’s all itchy now. But the fever’s broken and he was awake for most of the day today.” Margaret steered Michael back towards the kitchen. “Thank goodness Izzy wasn’t as sick. I don’t know what I would have done if they’d both gotten a bad case of chickenpox.”
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t here, sweetheart.” He kissed Margaret’s cheek, loving the warm, yeasty scent of her skin.
She hugged him tightly. “Ah, there’s nothing you could have done. You need to work – this house won’t pay for itself.”
“But it would have been easier on you if I was at home at night.”
Margaret shrugged. “Maybe, but good construction jobs are getting hard to find up here. At least you’re getting foreman’s pay.”
Michael sighed. “Sometimes I wonder just what I’m building. The city’s a cesspool – half of the building materials are stolen between the time they’re unloaded and the time the gates close. The other half is probably stolen from different job sites. And the goombas are all over the place, demanding protection money. Fucking rackets…”
“Hush, watch your language.”
Michael grimaced. Times were hard all over and all he wanted to do was provide for his family. And when everything was taken care of, when all of the bills were paid and his children were safe and asleep in their beds, he wanted go down to his basement and have a wee smoke.
But now was not the time for any such indulgence. His boy – the pride of his heart – was still sick and it cut him to the bone that he couldn’t be home to help care for him.
“Come, love – let’s go to bed. You’ll see Peter and Izzy in the morning.”
Michael let her drag him off to bed, and in truth, he wasn’t all that unwilling. The construction company was giving him fifteen a night for lodging and that didn’t go very far. He shared a room with another guy in a flophouse on the Bowery. The place reeked of misery – prostitutes and druggies and drunks littered the hallway – and the roaches fought with the rats for dominance. And then there was the dog. It wasn’t so big, but it was vicious enough to scare a grown man out of his skin.
No, Michael Burke was glad to be home. And if he had his way, he’d never leave.
Peter didn’t know which was worse: the desperate need to scratch at the scabs all over his body or the mittens his mom had taped to his hands to keep him from scratching while he was asleep. But he was awake now and needed go to the bathroom, except he couldn’t take care of his business with his hands like this.
Peter tried biting at the tape, but all he got for his efforts was a mouthful of fuzz. He had to go, though, and someone would have to deal with the mess he’d leave on the mittens. He made his way to the bathroom, rubbing at the itching scabs with the back of the mittens. The friction gave him some relief, except that the mittens were now coated with the pink concoction his mom had daubed all over his face. He probably looked like a freak.
“Hey, buddy – how are you feeling?”
A familiar and much longed for voice dragged Peter out of his misery. “Daddy!” Peter raced down the hallway into his father’s arms. “You’re home!”
Those arms wrapped around him gently. “Of course I am – I wanted to come home when you got sick. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“S’okay.” Peter buried his itchy face in his dad’s chest, forgetting for a moment how urgently he needed to go.
His dad pulled him away a little bit, so they could see eye-to-eye. “What are you doing out of bed, Pumpkinhead?”
Peter felt his face flush with embarrassment. “I gotta go.”
His father, for the moment, was ridiculously clueless. “Go where?”
Peter bit his lip. “Bathroom.”
“Ah. That’s always a good place to go when you’ve got to go.” His father stood and made a grand gesture towards the family bathroom.
“Um, Dad?”
“What, son?”
“Could you get these off me?” Peter held up his mitten covered hands.
His dad picked him up and carried him like a football into the bathroom and set him on the counter. The bright lights hurt his eyes and he blinked.
“Let’s get you sorted out.” His dad picked and pulled at the tape and Peter tried not to laugh at some of the curse words he heard him mutter. “Now, don’t you be telling your mom I said such terrible things.”
Peter smiled and didn’t care that the muscles pulled at the healing scabs and the pink residue. When his dad was stuck or frustrated with something, he spoke a little funny – like that actor in the movies.
“Ah, got that wee buggerin’ beastie!” The tape pulled free from the left-hand mitten with a fart-like sound and they both giggled. His dad made quick work of the right-hand one and lifted him off the counter. “All set!”
Peter didn’t wait for his dad to get out of the bathroom before he dashed for the toilet.
Michael, as was his habit, made breakfast for the family on Saturdays, letting Margaret sleep in. “How many pancakes do you want, Dizzy?”
“Dad – stop calling me that!” His eldest, by a mere fifteen minutes, whined her distress. “And two, please.”
“And two you shall have, princess.” Michael expertly flipped two pancakes onto a warm plate, added two rashers of bacon and some scrambled eggs before handing it to his best girl.
Peter came into the kitchen, looking like – well, something that might have been scraped off of the bottom of a shoe. The poor lad’s face was like a psychedelic pizza pie, his hair was pressed flat in all directions from too many hours of sleep, and he was desperately trying not to scratch at himself. Michael didn’t comment, and just asked, “You hungry, Pumpkinhead?”
“Not really.” The poor kid plopped himself down in the chair next to his sister.
“Ewww, you’re gross.” Isabelle pushed at Peter. “Go away – you stink.”
Michael sighed. So much for his lovely princess, who made gagging noises at Peter. “Isabelle Burke, if you can’t be nice to your brother, who’s been very sick, you can hand me your plate and go start your chores.”
His daughter scooted her chair towards the far end of the table and started shoveling food in her mouth as fast as she could.
“You okay, Peter?” Michael gently asked. On one hand, he was grateful that Isabelle only had a mild case of chickenpox – just a small rash on her belly and barely a fever to slow the little dynamo down. But on the other hand, it didn’t seem quite fair that Peter, who was so often defenseless against his twin’s tendency to ride roughshod over him, had been ten times as sick.
“I’m alright. And maybe one pancake, please?”
“That’s my boy.” Michael poured out the batter for a single pancake. After Isabelle brought her plate over to the sink and danced out of the kitchen, Michael took out his secret stash of chocolate chips and dropped a generous handful into the almost set batter.
A dollop of butter and syrup – the real stuff, not the horrible flavored sugar water that passed for syrup on the supermarket shelves – completed the dish. Michael didn’t figure that Peter would finish even half of it. “Here you go.”
Contrary to Michael’s expectations, Peter devoured the pancake and the small serving of bacon and eggs, plus a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice.
“You must be feeling better, laddie.”
Peter let out a small belch. “Yeah, dad – I think so.”
Michael made swift work of clean up. Margaret would sleep for another hour or so and he’d make her breakfast when she was ready. “Your sister might not be very diplomatic, but she does have a point. Since you’re feeling better, what would you say to a bath, Pumpkinhead?”
“Really?” His son couldn’t sound more thrilled.
Michael made a big show of feeling Peter’s forehead. “Hmm, you WANT a bath? What nine year old boy wants a bath? Are you sure you’re not feeling even sicker?”
Peter giggled and the sound was like an arrow through Michael’s heart. “Please, daddy?”
“Hmm, well, okay. Come on.”
He turned the heater on in the bathroom and set the tub to fill. There was a box of stuff on the edge of the tub – oatmeal flakes to stop the itching. “Hmm, do you need these?”
Peter scrunched up his nose. “They’re yucky. I can’t get clean and they stick all over.”
Michael tried to remember what it was like when he was a boy and had the chicken pox. The only think he could remember about bathing was that his mum wouldn’t let him have any soap. She had said it would dry out his skin. He rooted around the cabinets and found a bottle of mineral oil – no colors or perfumes to make Peter’s itchy skin itchier. He dumped a few capfuls into the water and helped the now-naked Peter into the tub. And he winced at the sight.
The lad was covered in scabs and dotted with the remnants of pink lotion – that stuff that Margaret put on the kids when they got bug bites to stop them from scratching. “You soak and take care you don’t drown yourself, okay laddie?”
Peter gave him a big grin. “Thanks, dad.”
Michael closed the bathroom door behind him and went to Peter’s room to clean it up – knowing that his son would feel better about going back to bed if the place wasn’t a mess. It was surprisingly neat – which meant that Peter had been way too sick. He stripped the bed and remade it quickly, all the while keeping an ear out for any sounds of distress.
He grabbed a clean pair of pajamas from the bureau and went back to the bathroom. Peter had managed to get most of the pink stuff off his face and chest, but there was still large swaths of it decorating his back, and he was doing his best to get it off.
“Need a hand?”
Peter nodded, “Please?”
“Lean forward.” Michael carefully washed his son’s back, doing his best not to disturb the healing scabs, but a few fell off. Margaret would probably insist on putting more of the pink stuff on, but for now, he let Peter enjoy the sensation of cleanliness.
“Come on, let’s get you out of the tub and back to bed before your mom catches us.”
Peter let out a mighty yawn and Michael decided to take matters into his own hands. He lifted his son out of the tub, dried and dressed him. Peter didn’t say a word until Michael went to put the mittens back on.
“Dad, no – please!” The poor laddie’s lips quivered and he sounded like he was about to cry. “I promise not to scratch myself.”
“Tell you what, Pumpkinhead, you let me put these on you and you take a nap. As soon as you wake up, I promise to take them off.”
“Don’t wanna nap.” Peter sniffled, rubbed his nose and reached up to scratch his scalp.
Michael took Peter’s hands. “You’ll let me put the mittens on, you’ll take a nap, and when you wake up, I’ll give you a very special present.”
Peter looked at him suspiciously. Michael knew he was a softie when it came to his children, but the one thing he never did was bribe them into good behavior.
“What sort of present?”
“I’m not telling. You’ll just have to take a nap and then find out.”
Peter’s lower lip stuck out and Michael almost gave in. His son, covered in chickenpox scabs, his damp and oily hair sticking up in a million directions, looked far too adorable for his sanity. At least he had no idea of his cuteness and how it could twist his father around his little finger.
Peter stuck out his hands and muttered “’Kay.” Michael put the mittens on, taped them around his little wrists so they wouldn’t fall off and let him back to his bedroom.
He settled his son back into bed, turned the lights off and closed the curtain. “You okay, Pumpkinhead?”
“Mmm, yeah.” Peter sounded like he half-asleep already. “Don’t forget my present, ‘kay?”
Michael leaned over and kissed his son’s forehead. “No, laddie, never.”
Peter woke slowly to one of his most favorite sounds in the whole wide world.
And Sparky Lyle is in for Ron Gardner, who has left the mound with two men on, two outs and a two-run lead in the ninth inning of the first game of this Saturday afternoon double-header…
The Yankees were playing. Peter sat up and rubbed his eyes, wincing as the mittens scratched at his eyelids.
“You awake, Pumpkinhead?” His dad was sitting in the chair under the window. The curtain was open a little, just enough to let some light in and Peter could see the newspaper turned to the puzzle page.
“Yeah.” He yawned and stretched and then remembered. “My present!”
His dad chuckled. “Haven’t forgotten. But let’s listen to the rest of the game.”
Sparky, the Yankees’ rookie closer, shut down the Red Sox with seven pitches – two strikeouts and a sinker that tricked Carlton Fisk into an infield pop-up. Thurman Munson caught it with little effort, ending the game.
His dad turned off the radio and opened the curtains the rest of the way, flooding the room with sunlight. “You really slept, kiddo. It’s after two. Was getting a little worried there.”
Peter wasn’t sure what to say and muttered, “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You’ve been sick.”
Peter held out his mittened hands. “Take them off.”
His dad gave him that stare.
“Take them off, please?”
“That’s better. Just because you’ve been sick doesn’t mean you can’t have manners.”
The tape was removed and Peter all but flung the gloves off. “I hate them.”
“You’ll hate been all pockmarked and scarred more.” His mom has come into the bedroom and felt his forehead. “You still feel a little warm.” She reached for the thermometer that had become a bedside table fixture and popped it into his mouth.
Peter wanted to spit it out – it tasted gross. He caught his dad’s eye and tried not to giggle as he made faces behind his mother’s back. Eventually, his mom plucked the glass stick out of his mouth and walked over to the window to read it.
“Well, no fever. You must be flushed from sleep.”
“I need to use the bathroom.” He did, he really did. Plus, Peter hoped that when he got back to bed, the promised present would be waiting for him.
And it was. Someone – probably his mom – had remade the bed, fluffed the pillows and set a glass of water on the bedside table. And on the bed were two wrapped packages. Peter resisted running and tearing into them.
His dad was still in the bedroom, in the chair under the window. He smiled at Peter. “Go on, open them.”
The first one looked like a book and since Peter loved books, he opened that one first. It was also big and heavy and when he finally got the wrapping paper off, he was completely puzzled. All it said was “STAMPS” in big gold letters. And the pages inside were blank.
“Open the other one.”
He did, and that confused him even more. The box contained a set of big tweezers, a package of weird envelopes, another package with even weirder things that look like little folded pieces of cellophane. But underneath everything was a clear box of brightly colored stamps. There were probably over a hundred in there.
“Thought you and me – we’d sort through those and put them into the album. Would you like to do that?” His dad sounded a little strange – like he wasn’t all that sure it would be something he – Peter – would like to do.
But Peter did. He’d read in the Boy Scout handbook that you could get a badge for stamp collecting – not that he was a Boy Scout yet and not that he wanted to do it just to get a badge. It would mean getting to spend a lot of time with his dad and that what he liked the best. “Yeah – I would. I really would.”
“That’s great. Now, scoot over and let’s see what you’ve got there. I had the store put together a mix of foreign stamps – so we could talk about all the strange places in the world.”
Peter looked up as his dad, eyes wide. “All the places you’ve been to?”
“And then some.”
Using the tweezer, Peter picked up a stamp at random. “Where’s Magyar Posta?”
Late Autumn, 2014, The Burke Alpaca Farm in Upstate New York
Elizabeth was in the kitchen with Peter’s mom and Mozzie, and he and Peter and Michael were in the barn. They’d paid their respects to Bruno, Lola, Blondie and the rest of the herd of alpacas, paying special attention to the three new additions – two female and one male cria – as baby alpacas were rightfully called.
“So you’re finally going to be a father.” Michael’s comment was ostensibly directed to “Pumpkinhead” but Neal could feel the older man’s speculation. He wanted to say something, just on principle, but Peter shot him a look that screamed keep your mouth shut or else. Since Neal had no desire to spend any time in the dog house, he did just that.
Peter leaned back on the ancient couch, kicked off his shoes and re-lit the joint Neal had passed to him. “It certainly seems that way.”
Now Neal couldn’t help but snicker at Peter’s blasé tone. Elizabeth was six months along and looked like she was closer to nine. Fatherhood was right around the corner.
Michael took the joint from Peter, inhaled deeply and fixed Neal with a gimlet stare. “And I suppose you’re looking forward to diaper duty, too.”
The unintentional double entendre set Neal, more than slightly stoned, off in gales of near-painful laughter, and this time both men stared at him until Peter caught the joke and started laughing, too. Michael looked particularly put out until he realized what he’d said. “Oh, right …”
They passed the joint around and enjoyed the haze.
Michael finally broke the silence. “Cumulonimbus, Have I even shown you Peter and Izzy’s baby pictures?” Over Peter’s objections, the old man got up and started perusing through the bookshelves that lined the office. “I have that album here, somewhere. “Ah – is this it?” He pulled out a worn, leather-bound book and opened it. Neal had to wonder at the strangely nostalgic expression on Michael’s face.
“Did you find it?”
“Nope – this is something different.” He handed the book to Peter. “Remember that summer, Pumpkinhead?”
Peter looked at the album and he grinned. “My stamp collection! You still have it!”
Neal recalled his derisive comments to Peter just a few months earlier and despite the giddy high, he felt a little ashamed. This was clearly something that meant a lot to both men.
He sat down next to Peter so they could both look at the book. It wasn’t anything particularly special, as stamp books went. The cover was cheap vinyl, cracked from age. The leaves were half filled with a variety of old cancelled stamps badly glued onto the page with those impossible to use cellophane hangers.
But it was something of incalculable value, something that Neal could never have and could never steal. It was a memory between a father and a son, and evidence of a deeply abiding love that Neal had never really experienced firsthand. He brushed a finger along the page and said, “Tell me about that summer…”
