“Would you like to meet your son?”

TEN YEARS AGO. . . .

Staring at one long enough had Roy wondering: just who thought that those pictures of babies sitting in the center of those giant flowers were cute? If anything, he decided, they were downright creepy, and he wished that there was at least one wall in the room that he could stare at without seeing one.

Flora had been in labor for the past four hours. Roy had been in the waiting room for the past two, after coming to the conclusion that he couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t the thought of the blood and fluids yet to come that bothered him; he saw enough of that sort of thing every day that it had little effect on him. What bothered him was the pain that his wife was in, coupled with the fact that the doctors didn’t seem to be able to do very much for her. Flora was allergic to most types of anesthesia, and had decided early on in the pregnancy that she didn’t want to risk an epidural. The result was a painful, if natural, delivery.

Each time Flora screamed, Roy asked the doctor the same question: “Are you sure this is all you can do?” And each time, the response was the same. Two hours ago was the last time Roy had waited around for an answer; when the doctor had again said no, Roy felt his fists curling up in raw anger, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to cave in the doctor’s skull with a big right hand. Roy knew, logically, that Flora would be fine, that she was in no real danger, that the hospital staff would administer the best care possible. But instinctively, every time she cried out, he wanted to kill someone.

Roy had gotten in some trouble a few years ago when, in his view, an emergency room intern wasn’t doing nearly enough to ease the pain Flora was suffering at the hands of a kidney stone. Roy had grabbed the doctor by his throat and pinned him up against the wall, his feet dangling eighteen inches off the floor, and held him there until he blacked out, not from lack of oxygen but from fear. Roy had spent the night in County lock-up, but was released the next day by a judge who found his devotion to his wife “touching”.

So when he felt his fists start to curl, Roy headed outside for some air. “In jail” was not the answer he wanted to give the first time his son asked, “Where were you the night I was born?”

Roy stood up again, and paced the short length of the waiting area again, going from a baby in a sunflower to a baby in a tulip to a baby in a daisy, each one creepier than the last. He stopped at the window again, overlooking the dark, quiet parking lot three floors below. He watched a young woman below stop to light up a cigarette under a dim streetlight, her face and hands momentarily backlit by the spark of her lighter. Then she was gone, a tiny red dot all that remained, moving on towards the bus stop.

Watching the woman reminded Roy that it had been hours since his last smoke, and he reached into his jacket pocket -

“Ahem.” The night receptionist behind him cleared her throat. He left the cigarettes in his pocket. He turned to look at the desk, where the receptionist helpfully pointed out the neon red NO SMOKING sign on the wall to his right. He nodded an insincere thanks and kept pacing.

Roy took another look at the wall clock. 3:15 AM. Two minutes since he last looked. He sighed deeply and sat back down in one of the red vinyl chairs, his fists squeezing the metal arm rests.

From the beginning, Flora had wanted to name the baby Gram, after her favorite singer Gram Parsons. Roy thought that Gram might not be the best name for his son, given what he often found himself doing for a living, and besides, he had always preferred Townes Van Zandt’s music to Parsons, Van Zandt being a fellow native Texan. Not that he wanted to name the boy Townes Temple, but he wasn’t quite sold on Gram. But after everything Flora was going through down the hall. . . She could name the boy anything she wanted. Graham, maybe, with an “H”.

“Mr. Temple?”

The nurse’s voice behind him startled Roy, and he bolted upright from his seated position, ripping the right arm rest clean off the frame of the chair as he did so.

“Yes?” he said as he turned to face her, stupidly holding the ragged metal in his right hand. He followed her gaze to his hand, then quickly dropped the piece back into the seat of the chair.

“Would you like to meet your son?”

“Morning, son.”

It was almost 6:00 AM when Deacon dropped Roy off at the Temples’ front door, the evening’s work complete. Roy turned the lock as quietly as possible, then took off his shoes in the doorframe. He slipped into the hallway on padded feet, quietly, no mean feat for a man of his size, trying not to wake Graham.

No luck. Roy could hear the water running in the bathroom shower down the hall, sending another wave of guilt slamming into his chest. The boy had always been an early riser; they had met just like this many times before, Roy coming in from work with the sun, Graham in his room quietly getting ready for school, Flora in the kitchen scrounging up some breakfast. Those had been good days; some of Roy’s favorites. But Roy hadn’t wanted to meet his son this way on this day, the day after they buried his mother.

The need for silence now eliminated, Roy dropped his keys on the kitchen table, then headed towards the den. He flipped open the top panel of the old console stereo on the far wall, giving it a moment to warm up. Down the hall, he heard the water stop as Graham finished his shower.

Roy flipped through several LPs standing in a wooden fruit crate sitting on top of the console, stopping when he came to an old Gram Parsons album. He pulled the record out gingerly, careful not to add any more scratches. He was doubly cautious considering what he had paid for it; he had bought it a few years back at a used record store, paying nearly a week’s salary. But it was all worth it when Flora unwrapped that night after they were done with the cake. He never understood her need for wax; to Roy, it all sounded the same, record, tape, or CD. But Flora loved the “truer sound” of vinyl, the way it was “meant to be”. Roy had always thought her an old soul, and if a record is what she wanted, then that’s what he would get her. Just like always.

Roy dropped the needle on “Grievous Angel”, and waited as the song filled the house. Satisfied with his selection, he turned and headed back to the kitchen. He stuck his head in the fridge, looking for some kind of breakfast.

“Good morning.”

Graham’s voice startled Roy, and he bumped his head on the middle shelf in the fridge, knocking a plastic bottle of mustard to the floor. The bottle rolled across the linoleum in a lazy, lopsided arc, coming to rest at Graham’s bare feet. Roy backed out of the fridge and closed the door. He nodded solemnly. “Morning, son.”

“Sleep well?” Graham asked quietly.

Roy shook his head. “Not really.” He forced a smile. “Want breakfast?”

“Sure,” Graham said, doubtfully.

The question had hardly left Roy’s lips before he had second thoughts. What does a kid eat for breakfast, anyway? He thought back to his own boyhood, but somehow it didn’t seem relevant. Oatmeal? Cereal? Steak and eggs? The Parsons’ song filled the awkward silence. Twenty thousand roads I went down down down, and they all led me straight back home to you. . . .

Inspiration hit Roy. “What do you want to eat?” he asked. “Anything you want.”

Graham seemed to give the question genuine thought. “Cheese,” he said finally. He grinned. “Cheese and fish sticks.”

Fish sticks? “I don’t know, Graham, I don’t think your mother - ” The look in Graham’s eyes stopped Roy short. “You know what, that sounds great,” he said instead. “Where do you keep the fish?”