Love Triangle

Ella, the boy’s step-sister, has frequently proclaimed her intention to one day take Silas’s hand in marriage. The boy, though prone to sew his wild oats with an endless string of babysitters—if making them play trains with him can be considered sewing wild oats—does not object, and insists on at least seven kids. Ella also planned to marry some kid named Carter from her daycare. Apparently she’s learning from my example—one marriage is never enough. Or maybe she’s planning a move to Utah.

Now she’s in big school, and this Carter kid appears to be a flash in the pan. That would be good news for Silas if it wasn’t for David, the BMOC of the kindergarten class at Blowing Rock Elementary school. Ella made the connection tonight at the dinner table that there’s an Ella, a Rachel, and a David in her class, just like at home. But there’s nary a Silas at her school, and perhaps that’s telling, as the boy appears to be a passing cloud in her distant nuptial forecast.

“Oh, David! I am soooooo in love with David,” she announced at dinner, picking at her last bit of a second helping of shells and cheese in hopes that dessert would be her reward for making a happy plate.

This revelation piqued the boy’s interest. His expression seemed to say, “Who is this David mofo? I wonder if I can kick his ass?” Apparently he inherited his dad’s jealousy gene.

“I’m sure David’s great,” I interjected (after all, he shares my name). Then I stirred the pot: “But you’re still going to marry Silas, right?”

“I’m still going to marry Silas, but I’m going to marry David first,” she proclaimed.

First is everything when you’re a four-year-old. Second is just the first loser. Silas did not take well to being a loser. The boy, jilted by a would-be lover for the first time, folded his bottom lip inside his mouth, squinched his nose, put a death lock on Ella with his eyes, and Romeo-like, held his breath in an attempt to put a premature end to his unrequited existence. Two silent tears did nothing to quench the red hue that rose in his cheeks.

Feeling a bit complicit in this unfolding melodrama, I tried to restore peace to the dinner table.

“You guys won’t be getting married for like 20 years; you don’t have any idea who you’re going to marry,” I said.

The boy finally gasped a big chunk of air. In a soft almost inaudible pout, he said, “But I want to marry Ella.”

She stared at him with a mix of, I think, compassion and delight. She didn’t want to hurt her future second husband, but the strange power she discovered over the opposite sex was exhilarating. In my mind I imagined an endless string of broken hearts.

“You know, you don’t even have to get married,” I told him, still hoping to defuse the drama. “You can take care of me when I get old instead. We’ll move to the beach and go fishing.”

This set the gears in the boy’s mind turning. The pout gradually receded from his voice as he made a plan. Dad would drive the boat and he would hold the pole. We would catch those fish with the swords. I have to admit, this was sounding promising.

Ella, drawing the salt from her well-sucked thumb, sat quietly, taking this all in. Cheer finally returned to the boy’s voice as the father-son fishing scenario swelled with more and more details. It turns out that I will be a shrimp and shark sailboat captain, and we’ll use nets and little hooks. The little hooks are so we don’t catch any big sharks. We’re planning to eat the little ones.

Defiantly, he concluded: “I don’t want to get married. I’m going to live with my Dadda.”

Ella burst from the table, crying out indecipherable utterances of unbearable pain en route to her bedroom, where she threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow.

Rachel called after her: “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sad!” she shouted. “I want to marry Silas!”

Perhaps tonight the boy learned a valuable lesson too: always play hard to get.

Dear lord, I wonder what it's going to be like when they get to high school?