The Notice

"It's either going to go very well or very badly." I said, as I turned the tan Honda Civic off of Route 10 and entered Look Park to pick up my fiancee Dunreith's seven and a half year old son Aidan.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be happy for us." Dunreith scoffed. At first, it looked like she was right. Aidan saw us approach him, detached himself from his girlfriend Caitlin, and leapt into my arms. "I wish today wasn't the last day of camp" he said, as we directed him toward the appointed bench.

"I know, honey. You've had a wonderful summer at camp." Dunreith cooed.

We arrived at the green park bench and sat on either side of him. "So, Aidan." Dunreith said. "We have something to tell you. What do you think it is?"

"That you love me?" He answered, his eyebrows raised.

"Well, we do…" I responded.

"But there's something else…" Dunreith interjected, and thrust the ring in front of him. Aidan stared at the two marquise diamonds nudging against each other for five long seconds. Rivers of tears gushed from his blue eyes. "I told you I'm not going to be the ring bearer!" He yelled, and stomped off to the nearby grass. Dunreith retrieved him and held him on her lap.

"Honey" she soothed him, "It's going to be a good thing."

I smiled lovingly at Aidan, hoping to shift him from his agitated state to a more calm place.

"What are you smiling at, fathead?" he snapped through his tears.

"Now, Aidan. That's not nice." I answered weakly. We coaxed him into the car and started driving to Dunreith's apartment in Easthampton.

"It's the biggest change in my life." He wailed from the back seat, sounding like a forty something man in deep mid-life crisis. "There are 8,000 reasons why it shouldn't happen."

"Aidan" Dunreith spoke with a deft blend of compassion and reproof. "How about the good things? What about the 8,000 reasons why it should happen?"

"No. I want to talk about the bad things."

"Well' she said. "I'm not going to silence you. Go ahead."

"Yeah" I said. "Let's hear these reasons." Being called 'fathead' had prepared for whatever he might have to say.

"Number one." He always has numbers when it comes to reasons. "I'm going to get into eight times as much trouble with the two of you."

"But, Aidan." I answered. "Remember how great you did on vacation in Maine when it was just the three of us. What's the second reason, bud?" I tried to be as cheerful as possible, without, of course, smiling at him.

He hesitated for a minute. "Number two. I'll have to call you Dad all the time. But I guess that would be reasonable since I call you that most of the time, anyway."

His use of the word reasonable and the speed at which his supply of reasons was evaporating astonished me. I could have have gotten him into double digits without blinking.

"All right. How about number three?" I asked.

"Number three. I'll have to hear more Harry Potter. You'll have to read to me in the morning" he declared, pointing at me. "And you'll have to read to me in the evening." He loved Harry Potter.

"How do you think I feel?" Dunreith asked. "I'm the one who has to share a room. I'm going to be the only one in the family without a wienie!"

Aidan couldn't restrain his smile, and broke into song based on a joke we deployed to lift his soured moods. "We are the Wieners, the Worriner Wieners. We are the Wienie Wienie Wieners. I am Wenis Worriner Wiener." He crowed. "Proudly presenting my mother Wenisa Worriner Wiener and my father Wiener Worriner Wiener. We have some neighbors on our street. We have the Penises, Penelope and Petunia. Now, if I marry Petunia Penis, I will be Wenis Worriner Wiener-Penis, and she will be Penelope Penis-Worriner Wiener." He had depicted half the neighborhood by the time we pulled into our parking spot, and spilled out for a celebratory game of Star Wars.

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About the Author: Jeff Lowenstein is a writer who lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts, with his wife Dunreith and son Aidan.

He read a piece about taking Aidan to his first day of first grade on WBUR, Boston's National Public Radio affilliate.

His print publications includes Potpourri, The Dorchester Community News, The Easton Journal, The Brighton Tab, Kindlerlink, and the Massachusetts Chapter of the ALS Association..

His on line publications include HipMama, Eclectica, Best Writers, and Inmotion Magazine.

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