The air was still breathable, but all the fun had been taken out of it. I stood and watched as Ryan, my son and only salvation of my sanity dropped his wiffle-ball bat and hurried over to the bulging eyes, inviting open-mouthed smile, and nostalgic embrace of his mother. She picked him up with a special enthusiasm reserved for him, the way she did every second and third weekend of the month. The only thing worse than the genuine happiness shared between the two that would forever exclude me, was the happiness of Alana, my ex-wife, and Talbot, her husband and my uncle, that I would forever want to destroy.

"Happy birthday, Snooks," Alana said to Ryan, tickling him with the free hand that wasn’t used to hold him. Ryan squirmed with childish delight while the other children playing the game stood and watched unattached. They just wished Ryan would come down so they could continue the game that I had spent the week trying to organize.

"Go back and play," Alana said with her soft, disarming voice. Her beauty seemed eternal, if not cruel and undeserving. Ryan dropped out of her arms and hurried back to the game. His giant smile of overwhelming satisfaction driving him and inconsiderate of me. The game resumed with the laughter and carelessness of the mild summer day, but my umpire duty was buried under my cocktail of emotions at the sight of the pair.

Alana and Talbot started toward me. I felt the pain of each blade of grass they crushed beneath their feet and I waited for the inevitable crushing of myself. The whole environment was perched ready to make Ryan’s special day my nightmare. The deliberate way the two didn’t hold hands as a gesture of tact in a situation of forced awkwardness. The calm look of dutiful determination on Alana’s face and the supporting role of Talbot’s bullshit surveillance as he trailed a few steps behind. I held my ground with a false persona of a divorcee fortress, more terrified with each hidden deep breathe.

"Hey, Anson," Alana said with a feigning smile of reassurance. She stopped a few feet away from me and turned to look at all the kids enjoying the bulletproof days of youth. "Quite the party you planned. Looks like Ryan is really enjoying himself."

I nodded in discomfort and folded my arms in defense.

"Anson, nice to see you. Nice party," Talbot said to me out of the bullshit higher obligation of adulthood. He extended his hand to me, confident I wouldn’t chop it off and feed it to the dog.

"Get your fuckin hand away from me. Nobody invited you," I said quietly, not wanting to shatter any children’s world with profanity punishable by the longest of time-outs. I changed my stare to Alana, my eyes trembling with memories and betrayal. "Why do you bring him. You had no right to bring him."

"Anson, Talbot is a big part of Ryan’s life now, you have to accept that. He is helping raise him. Please try and understand." Alana spoke to me with rehearsed justification (*faith in her justification, perhaps?*). She knew I would be upset, but felt this was right.

"Look, Anson if this is going to be a major problem, I can leave. I don’t want to ruin Ryan’s party on account of me." Talbot wasn’t as courageous as Alana. He spoke as if he didn’t know how close I was to crumbling.

"Talbot, no, we discussed this," Alana said not looking at him.

"Yeah, Talbot, I think you better go because there is going to be a problem," I gambled on Talbot’s weakness and stepped forward in his direction. I lowered my force to a forceful whisper and hardened my gaze to that of an executioner. "In fact, there is going to be a big fuckin problem."

I took another step to get closer to Talbot before Ryan ran up and yanked my arm like he always did when he wanted my attention and I wasn’t looking at him. I looked down and saw him hanging by my hand, swinging, tongue wagging, with a look of blissful delirium. "Dad, did you see it, did you see my big hit. It went way over there." He stopped swinging and pointed into the outfield. I looked in the direction he was pointing and noticed nothing but a bunch of kindergarteners playing wiffle-ball hopelessly.

I picked him up into my arms. "Yeah, great Ryano. Wow, did it go far," I paused to snuggle my chin into his neck and then turned to the other children and put the cheese in the great kindergarten trap, "Who wants ice cream?" At this all the children tossed their gloves in the air and cheered as if they had just seen Santa Claus.

"Yay, ice cream!" their high voices shouted.

I turned back to Talbot and focused my eyes on him with a stare that told him I just did him a favor, "Yay, ice cream," I said. I didn’t break my stare with him until I turned my back to walk to the house.