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Abuela’s grass is stiff against his legs, makes him scratch at his ankles and the back of his thighs as he lays on his back, watching the cloudless sky. Dad had woken up him early to get work done, but it’s already uncomfortably hot and his belly is full of Abuela’s migas, making him feel sluggish already.
Dad’s shirtless when he spreads a sheet on the grass and Chris reaches for the hem of his own shirt only to have Dad stop him. “Keep it on, you don’t want to have a sunburn when Buck takes you Go Karting later,” he says.
Chris rolls onto the sheet and sighs happily, rubbing the back of his legs to get the last sting of the grass off. “You made me put on sunscreen,” he reminds Dad. “How come you can have your shirt off and I can’t?”
“Because I don’t glow in the sunlight,” Dad teases, dropping a bag of nails onto the sheet beside him and a hammer a little further away.
“Buck says you do,” Chris says.
Dad’s cheeks turn pink. “I’m going to go get the boards for the fence, mijo, why don’t you go grab us a bottle of water?”
“Okay,” Chris says, but he doesn’t move. Abuela will come out with water later, maybe some jamaica if he’s lucky, mixed with orange juice the way he likes it. Sometimes she adds a pineapple wedge to the glass, and floats little cherries among the ice, but only for a fancy dinner, like when his grandparents come visit, or when Buck gets out of the hospital after getting hurt at work, or when Chris brings home his report card with really good grades. He doesn’t think fixing a fence is going to warrant a fancy drink, though, so it will probably just be regular tea, tart and icy on his tongue.
“Lazy,” Dad mutters, nudging Chris’ shoulder with his bare foot as he sits back down, the stack of boards in his arms hitting the lawn with a clatter. “Toss me those gloves and get the nails ready, if I wanted you to lay around doing nothing I’d have you stay in the house and I’d ask Buck to come help.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Chris says. The gloves are next to his hand—close enough for Dad to reach himself, but he’s the lazy one, okay—and he tosses them at Dad before reaching more carefully for the nails. He is really looking forward to going Go Karting tonight, so he needs to make sure he doesn’t get sunburned, or cut, or anything else that Dad would make him stay home for.
“I wouldn’t?”
“He’d just do everything upside down, like when he put all the seats on the chairs on wrong,” Chris says, and grins when Dad laughs. Dad’s face had been so funny when they walked into the house and Buck had been sitting against the wall, staring at all the chairs that were off-kilter. “You said, ‘Buckley, I’m never asking for your help again’,” he mimics.
Dad laughs. “You got me. Buck might make this into an all day job, we can’t ask for his help with this.”
“Just with cooking,” Chris says cheekily, laughing when Dad rolls his eyes. “How come Buck is so bad at building things?”
“I don’t think his Dad taught him how, buddy,” Dad says.
“Oh,” Chris says, frowning. Buck never talks about his parents, maybe he’ll ask him tonight, maybe he can figure out what else Buck needs to learn about. “We should probably teach him, then,” he says, handing Dad a nail when he holds his hand out.
“We could do that,” Dad says.
They don’t talk while Dad works, affixing two boards to the backer rails quickly, sticking the extra nails Chris hands him between his lips. “You shouldn’t do that, Dad,” he says. “You always say most of your job is helping people who did dumb things and now you’re doing a dumb thing.”
Dad spits the nails into his hand and purses his lips. “So you hear me say that, but somehow you go suddenly deaf when I tell you to wash your hands before dinner?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chris says. The sun is too bright now; he throws an arm over his eyes and picks out another nail from the bag, resolving to only give Dad one at a time. Buck would kill him if he needed to call 911 because Dad swallowed nails, and he needs to stay on Buck’s good side if he wants to talk him into going rock climbing.
“Sure,” Dad says dryly. “But you’re right, I should know better. You know, you’ll make a good fireman, Chris. You’ve got the safety part down.”
Chris sighs. His mood feels heavy with Dad’s words, they weigh his heart down in his chest. “I’m not going to be a firefighter,” he says.
“No? Did Career Day at school give you another dream job?”
“Dad,” he sighs, peeking at him from behind the arm still blocking the sun, “I can’t be a firefighter.”
Dad stops with the hammer halfway to the fence and looks over; the happiness is gone from his face and Chris feels bad. Dad’s not as sad as he used to be, after Mom died and Buck stopped visiting, but Chris doesn’t like to be reminded of that and the sad look on Dad’s face brings it back.
“It’s fine,” he says, dropping the nail back in the bag and patting Dad on the knee. “And it’ll make Abuela happy, because she always crosses herself and says ‘Christopher Diaz, you can be a firefighter when frogs grow hair. Don’t go looking for trouble’.”
Dad laughs, but it’s not a happy one, not the one from his belly. “I knew we’d have to talk about this one day, Chris, but—”
Chris rolls onto his belly, pressing his sun-warmed skin against the cooler grass underneath the sheet. “We don’t,” he says, turning his head to face Dad. “It’s okay, Dad.” It is, really; this is the first time he’s brought it up, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been thinking about it since Dad and Uncle Chim came to Career Day and showed videos of firefighters carrying people out of buildings, rappelling down cliffs, and all the other things that Chris realized with a sinking heart that he would never be able to do quickly enough to help people in need.
“Buddy,” Dad says. “If it bothers you, we can talk about it. You can always talk to me, you don’t need to worry about making me upset.”
“It doesn’t bother me right now,” he says, honestly. It had, it made him feel helpless, weak, but the more time that passed, the better he felt. He knows that Dad will support him, will help him find something he loves. “I wanted to be a firefighter because I wanted to be like you,” he adds. “But maybe I’ll just be a good Dad, instead.”
Dad’s hands are on his waist and he’s being pulled up, squirming, into Dad’s lap. “Thank God for you, kid,” Dad whispers, pressing a kiss into his hair.
He tolerates it for a moment; he still loves cuddling with Dad, but it’s hot and getting sticky outside, and after a moment he pushes up out of Dad’s lap. “Let me help,” he says, grabbing the hammer.
“You just want to tell Abuela this was all your work,” Dad says, but he lets Chris kneel down in front of him and reaches around to hold the nail steady. “Small movements first, okay? Don’t go all Buck with a sledgehammer on me.”
Chris giggles and focuses on tapping the nail in; Dad guides his hand at first but after the third one, he has the hang of it and the white sheet in the grass stays abandoned as he follows Dad around the perimeter, fixing all the broken and loose boards. They finish just before lunch, which Abuela brings them when they’re flopped in the shade of the tall trees that border the street.
Chris drinks his jamaica quickly, digs into his elote as Dad shows Abuela the work they did. He’s just stealing drinks of Dad’s jamaica when Abuela nods and tells them they did a good job. “Are you working tomorrow, mijo?” she asks.
“Not until Thursday,” Dad answers, taking his cup out of Chris’ hands and giving him a look.
“Then you’ll be over tomorrow to paint,” she says, and Chris laughs at the look on Dad’s face. She picks up the empty cup next to Chris’ plate and winks at him. “And bring mi bombón tomorrow, I’ll teach him to make chili relleno while you boys do all the labor.”
“Abuela,” Dad groans, and Chris laughs, holding his belly as he lays his head into Dad’s lap and looks up at the bright blue sky.
There’s a lot of things he can be, later. Right now, he’s just happy to be here.