When I Was Older, I Will Grow Up by Jean Synodinos

“You had an excellent day,” says my boy Kenny. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Perilous words from the kid who follows me like a joyous five-year-old puppy, underfoot from dawn until dark, inches away from an inadvertent kick in the shin. But Kenny’s right. I didn’t  have a drink. By that measure, some would say it was an excellent day.  

“Quit bugging me.”

“I’m a kid. It’s my job to bug you.” 

“Is that what you tell your mother? Bet she’d like you to grow up.” 

Kenny shrugs, toothbrush in mouth, and drips out a few frothy words intended to define his relationship to the world right now: “When I was older, I will grow up.” 

Un-fucking-flappable, this one. 

His mom sent me packing two years ago. She’d yelled enough. Our last night, after I got caught lying about losing another job, I swore for the umpteenth time I’d start going to meetings.  She asked, “What’ll be so different about tomorrow?” All her rage was gone, and I didn’t know how to answer her whisper. 

Today was the eleventh of 14 consecutive court-ordered days I get with Kenny each summer on top of one weekend a month and one night a week. By my count, that’s 2,886 hours a year to make things right—but I live in full-throated terror of getting it wrong. Nights and weekends are easy enough if we’re not both tired, but last summer, I screwed up royally. I took vacation time for Kenny’s visit, but after three days with a be-bopping four-year old, I checked out. I left him to chase the neighbor’s cat while I hunkered down with Grand Theft Auto and a pint tucked between the sofa cushions. 

So I was buzzed the day a rock hit the back of the house. I went outside and caught Kenny throwing stones at a cardinal. I flew at him, shook him hard, got in his face. “Why the fuck would you hurt a bird?” 

Between the sobs and the mucous, Kenny gagged, “If he’s hurt, he’ll need me to take care of him, and then he won’t want to leave.” 

Fuck if that isn’t the loneliest thing I ever heard. That weight’s what finally carried me into meetings. 

This summer, I got the bright idea that maybe Kenny’s a kid who’d love a job, so—hand to God—I asked if he’d want to catch fireflies for the biology department at the university here. 

“What’s so special about fireflies?” he asked.

“Scientists study how they light up. It’s called bioluminescence. They think it might help cure diseases.”

That piqued his interest, but not enough to seal the deal. “And it pays?”

“A penny a piece. You keep it all.”

“Is this for real?” Kenny eyed the history of lies on my face. 

“I promise,” I said. “And if you don’t like the job, you can quit.”

“Like you do?”

“Like I used to do.” 

Three days into his employment, I took him to get a new pair of sneakers. Near the back of the sporting goods store, Kenny stopped and pointed to a butterfly net. “I need that. I’ll catch more fireflies.”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“No way. It’s smart.” He curled his lips and lifted one eyebrow like he was planning a heist. It felt like more evidence of my lousy parenting, but yeah, Kenny got his net. 

He missed a night of work when storms rolled in, but the next night there were so many bugs out there it looked like Christmas lights strung between the trees, and I jumped in to help.

“Do I have to pay you?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said. “Just helping you maximize profits.”

“Isn’t that cheating?” He whipped his net through the air.
“It’s smart, like you said. And don’t I get to have some fun?” I chased my first firefly like it was a bottom-of-the-ninth line drive but missed and tumbled into a boxwood.

When he stopped laughing, Kenny said, “You’re not very good at fun.” 

To be clear, I want a drink. I’ve wanted one since Kenny got here. I want one with every microwaved chicken nugget, every screening of Toy Story II, every time I smell his hair. I want one now as I’m tucking in this squirm machine who can’t stop talking about what he’ll do with his Firefly Fund, and I’m sure as shit going to want one for tomorrow night’s big count, because that was the deal—no counting the buggers until the last night of capture. 

But here’s how it’s going to play out: after celebratory ice cream, I’ll pull that mason jar out of the freezer, and Kenny’ll dump those cold carcasses on the kitchen counter. He’ll push his treasure into a small mountain, then pull each bug away, precisely mining every precious penny until he realizes that their sum won’t go far in the marketplace. He’ll beg to start over, just to make sure he didn’t miss a few, but by then those tiny cadavers will have warmed up under the kitchen lights, and they’ll start the inevitable process of decomposition—enzymes eating cells and thoraxes seeping volatile organic gases that stink like putrid fruit—and Kenny will smell death for the first time in his life. I’ll witness two weeks’ worth of joy freeze, thaw, and decay like those fucking insects because I know that he knows that he’ll never, ever forget that smell. His round brown eyes will rim with water. So will mine. I’ll reach for his hand, but he’ll retreat. His tiny open mouth will try—will fail—to utter the only two questions he wants to ask: What have I done? Why did you let me do it? 

And in that moment, I’ll want to pour us each a glass of whiskey so we can talk like the grown men I wish we were.

Jean Synodinos is an emerging writer from Austin, TX whose first stories were published in 2020 by The Normal School and Orca: A Literary Journal. She is the 2021 Writers’ League of Texas Bess Whitehead Scott Creative Writing Fellow and is currently working on her first novel.