This May my teenage son, Tony, complained about needing money during his summer break at UCF. My wife, Teresa, said, jokingly, “Hey, I’d pay you to take your brother away.” Tony asked, in all seriousness, how much. And the Summer of Unexpected Delight began.
For a bit less than it usually cost us to board, feed, and amuse his 12-year-old brother, James, we offered to pay Tony to act as a one-boy summer camp. Provide a couch, Internet access, take him to the pool and to movies and generally keep him occupied. Arts and crafts were optional. Before either son could think this through we dumped James — along with his computer, his TV, enough gaming consoles to launch a successful invasion of the eastern hemisphere, a handful of clothes, and a toothbrush — at Tony’s Orlando apartment and we drove off, laughing gaily and high-fiving each other.
We knew it couldn’t last. We weren’t entirely sure they wouldn’t beat us home. Tony and James, seven years apart, have a healthy and spirited fratricidal relationship that would have fit right into any of your more common Greek tragedies. We fully anticipated seeing James back within a week, and then only if we changed the locks on the sixth day to slow him up. But hey, even a quiet afternoon would be a nice change of pace.
And then, the impossible happened. The boys didn’t kill each other. Not even once.
We failed to realize just how desperately Tony wanted the extra money, and how much James enjoyed pestering the heck out of him without referees present. Somewhere in there a shaky ceasefire emerged, undoubtedly after many civilian casualties, and aside from a weekend home or two and the inevitable requests for more cash we didn’t see either son for two and a half months.
It was glorious.
You see, in two decades of living together my wife and I have never, ever been alone for more than 24 hours unless surgical sedation was involved. From apartment to apartment to house, our home has always been crammed with family members, roommates, friends just crashing for a few congressional sessions, and kids, not all of whom were ours. Suddenly and without warning it was just … the two of us.
Try and comprehend this, fellow parents: when I came home from work there was, miraculously, the same number of drinks in the refrigerator as there had been when I left. Toys were not underfoot. Books and videos were oddly unstrewn. The TV in the living room stayed off for weeks. There were no mysterious and unaccountable jelly stains on the ceiling fan. No experiments involving the dogs, a bag of rubber bands, and a disposable razor. Representatives from the local emergency centers called periodically to make sure we were all right.
And, best of all, Teres was always waiting for me bright-eyed, cheerful, and hardly wanting to murder anybody at all.
Exciting and life-enriching things awaited our newfound freedom. The remodeling and the yardwork. Teres’ art projects, and the writing I wanted to do. The yoga classes and fitness courses and horseback riding and traveling and oh, all the new things in our bright and uninterrupted future.
Of course we didn’t do any of them. Mostly we snuggled up every night, picnicked on the bed, watched DVDs, and enjoyed the silence. Sometimes we would go out to a restaurant that didn’t serve chicken fingers or hamburgers, and we’d just giggle to ourselves.
This has been, bar none, the best and least productive summer of my life. It was like a honeymoon, only without the bills and sunburn and embarrassing discoveries at Customs.
All good things must come to an end, thanks to unreasonable regulations regarding child abandonment, and so Camp Tony closed its doors and we welcomed James back home last weekend. I found I even missed the little guy until he started eyeing the dogs’ fur.
Now we have school to get ready for, and clothes to buy and shots to get, and we huddle in our bedroom trying to identify where he is by the crashing sounds. But we have our memories of one glorious summer.
And we’re saving for next year. I’ll bet the boys would like Mexico.