I grab his shoulders as he bounds across the porch with his clunky duck walk. He's spilled the beans too many times in his three years on this planet. Not today. I squat, look into those eyes—the same brown as mine, but in a face as guileless as his mother’s—to say, for maybe the tenth time, “Remember, it’s a surprise, bud." He smiles, crooked and gappy, neck juddering like a bobblehead’s. “I remember, Daddy.” Thus bound to secrecy, he careens past me as I toss the keys into the bowl near the door. “Happy birthday, Mommy! We got you CDs!"
Jim Parisi, a freshly unemployed editor, lives in Occupied Washington, D.C., with his long-suffering wife Beth and Dolce, their sweet but rambunctious boxer-pitbull mix. Bluesky: @jpariseye.bsky.social