Puppy Love

Satisfied that Crane would fall asleep in the next few minutes, Adam moved quietly from Crane's bed to check on the younger boys.

He had tucked Ford, Evan, and Daniel in almost an hour before so he expected they had already journeyed into dreamland.

That proved not to be the case, however. When he paused to straighten the covers over Evan's still form the seven year old flipped onto his side with a grin, "Hey there Adam."

"Hey yourself. You should be asleep by now." Adam brushed back Evan's light blond bangs.

"I know," Evan whispered, his words a bit fuzzy from the fresh loss of a top tooth. "Except I can't sleep yet."

Adam sank down on the edge of the mattress and laid a calloused hand against the little boy's cheek. "You don't have a fever," he pronounced, careful to keep his voice low so as not waken the others. "Do you feel sick like sick to your tummy?"

"No, not sick," Evan shook his head back and forth.

Puzzled, Adam narrowed his eyes. "Well why are you still awake so long after I tucked you into bed?"

Evan shifted so that he could settle with his head cushioned in Adam's lap. "Do you understand puppet love, Adam?"

"Puppet love?"

"Yes."

Adam began to rub Evan's back, the strokes gentle and soothing. "Love among puppets?" he guessed. At Evan's giggle he admitted, "No, then, maybe puppets don't even like each other. So you will probably have to explain puppet love to me, but you have to hurry. It's way past bedtime for you and tomorrow's a school day."

Evan reached up and tapped Adam's chest. "Right here with your heart when you love somebody a whole bunch."

Adam licked his lips and tried to follow the little boy's train of thought. "Do you mean a girl?"

"Exactly!" Evan's face lit in the semi-darkness and he grinned gleefully.

Adam pursed his lips, "Do you love some little girl, Evan? Someone in your class?"

"Yep!" Evan assured him proudly without a hint of hesitation.

Adam bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. "That sounds wonderful. Will you tell me her name?"

"Meredith."

Adam waited for more detail but Evan evidently felt he had answered the question. Adam tapped his little brother's nose. "Ok, Buddy, I want more than that about Meredith. Tell me something about your little miss."

"Ok," Evan agreed. "She is in my class and she lives right by the post office."

"And?"

"And she has long, long, really curly black hair."

"Uhm, sounds pretty."

"She wears earrings," Evan added and held his forefinger and thumb together to demonstrate what he intended. "Like this. Her earrings look like this."

"Hoop earrings."

Evan confided, "We decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend."

"Did you now? How did that come about?"

Evan scrunched his face in concentration. "Tuesday she gave me her chocolate milk at lunch so I said she could be my girlfriend."

Adam laughed then, and Evan scowled. "That's not funny to me!"

"No, no it's not," Adam agreed glancing around the room to check if he had waked anyone. "It's not funny at all. But tell me this. Do you love her just because of the chocolate milk?"

"No, she knew I loved her before because I wolf whistled."

Adam blew out a frustrated breath. Why had Brian felt it necessary to teach their brothers to wolf whistle? He knew Adam worked hard to foster some manners in them.

Evan struggled to a sitting position and asked thoughtfully. "Don't you understand love?"

"I thought I did." Adam shrugged his shoulders. "What else makes you love Meredith, though?"

"I love her 'cause she's beautiful and I pick her flowers sometimes at recess. And she loves me 'cause she says so all the time."

"Well, that clarifies it for me. Thanks."

Evan responded with an angelic smile so adorable that Adam felt his chest tighten at the sight. "I can see plainly why Meredith fell for you. You're as cute as a bug in a rug, incredibly handsome and intelligent, as well. Evan McFadden is quite a catch."

"I know," Evan agreed.

Adam coughed pointedly.

"Oh, I mean I know and thank you."

"Now that we settled that, you need to lie back down and close your eyes." Adam lifted the edge of the covers so that Evan could slide down underneath them.

Once settled Evan tugged on his brother's sleeve to remind him, "You forgot about the puppet love."

"I did forget. Where did you hear that term?"

"My teacher said it."

"Tell me the context," Adam directed, then modified his request. "What was happening when your teacher told you the puppet thing?"

Evan frowned in concentration. "After we eat lunch we're s'posed to take our trays to the lady who washes them. So I took mine and Meredith handed hers to me and I took that too."

Adam smiled, "Now that thoughtfulness impresses me." He leaned down and tweaked the tiny nose, eliciting a giggle from the pint sized narrator. "But I interrupted you. Finish the puppet part of your story."

"So I put my tray in my right hand…" Evan held up his hand to demonstrate. "…and I carried Meredith's in my left hand. But my teacher asked me if I ate two lunches!" He grinned gleefully. "Bet I could eat two lunches!"

Adam scratched his chin. He seriously doubted the boast. Evan's eating habits drove him to distraction on a daily basis. Not only was Evan a finicky eater, but he consumed one item on his plate at a time before tasting another, eventually finishing off the vegetable, then the meat, and the next food group without combining a single food item.

"Because Brian said my muscles got bigger in the summer and that's why I could carry trays like that."

"Sounds plausible," Adam agreed.

"Anyway, Meredith forgot to put the milk carton on the tray but she caught up with me. She set it on the tray before the cafeteria lady took it and she almost got into trouble 'cause she ran in the lunchroom. But she said that her boyfriend had her tray and then the teacher knew we were boyfriend and girlfriend."

Adam nodded conspiratorially. "Teacher found out the secret, right? The cat was out of the bag."

"Yep!" Evan wiggled down a bit under the blankets and tried to cover a yawn with his hand.

Adam noticed and slid off of the bed. "Way past your bedtime."

Evan grabbed his sleeve. "Wait a second, please. I want to finish my puppet story."

Adam regarded the elfin face and compromised, "Ok, but you have to hurry. You should already have sailed into dreamland by now."

"Thanks," Evan responded. "And the end of the story is then my teacher told the cafeteria lady that Meredith and I had the puppet love."

Realization dawned on Adam and he grinned and corrected, "Puppy love, Evan. The teacher said it was puppy love."

"We're not puppies," Evan scowled with indignation. "We're people."

"Puppy love is an idiom like letting the cat out of the bag. We really don't mean puppies or a cat but we use them as expressions of what we mean. So a puppy is a young dog but as the puppy grows he changes. As a person grows he may love many people and grownups understand that that first puppy love won't be the last. Like you- you'll meet more girlfriends than Meredith and will think you love them, too, before you actually even mature into an adult."

Evan remained silent several moments as he pondered Adam's explanation. "So did you have a puppy love?"

"I certainly did," Adam assured him. "More than one, in fact. And Brian has had his own puppy loves too. Puppy love is supposed to help get you ready for your most important grown-up love, the love of a lifetime."

"What if your puppy love stays all the way until you get grown and then ends up as the love of your life?"

Adam brushed a hand over Evan's soft cheek. "That could certainly happen. No more discussion about puppy love, though. I want you to close your eyes and go to sleep. I love you."

Evan shut his eyes obediently. "Love you, too. And just so you know, Meredith is going to be my puppy love and my grown up big dog love, too. Night night, Adam."

"Good night, Evan," Adam murmured as he tiptoed from the room.