Long before Benjamin would be formed, Aurora had decided that she wanted to be a stay at home mother for at least the first six years of our children's lives. Both our norms and values consisted out of raising our children in the best way we could, and we had never thought sending a child of your own to a daycare five days out of the week was part of that.

Not that we weren't sure the people working there wouldn't do their jobs well- but because we knew the base of a child was made in those years and we wanted them to be surrounded by their own parents as much as possible, in a healthy way, for a stable base. I had never disagreed, had always thought that was the best for our children, too.

It wasn't that Aurora was too lazy to work- I think every man who has a wife and children sees how much work a child and a household actually are, to which is a shame that a mother never gets much praise or gets paid for it- Aurora loved being busy, but she stood for her beliefs, our norms and values and I respected that as well as knew it was the best for our child. We tried a lot, nonetheless we stayed childless for a long time. When Benjamin finally came, Aurora couldn't be busier.

With me working five days a week to take care of my wife and son mostly financially, Aurora was there to feed our boy and entertain him throughout the day when I was gone. Home, I would cuddle him and kiss his chubby cheeks until he would fall asleep. With this all happening, Aurora proposed for me to have a father- son day once in a while. She would go out with her mother, my mother, or some friends, and I would have Benjamin to myself for the whole day.

That way, I had enough time with him and Aurora could have a break from her busy mum life.

Things had changed, drastically. I didn't necessarily need to plan a father- son day nowadays, however, I felt like it was needed. Felt like spoiling him, taking him out for the day. I didn't know where it came from, but seeing those happy children yesterday broke something loose in me. Seeing Sade, the photo of baby Benji, Gloria..

When I had awoken, I took a warm shower, got dressed, brushed my teeth and made my way over to Benjamins' room. It was nearing ten am, but when I stood in front of the door, I heard nothing. The indescribable feeling appeared in my guts already, but I tried to swallow them away and open the door, telling myself he was just tired from a week of going to school.

Yet, I couldn't stop thinking about Daniel, who had asked me if Benjamin awoke so early too every day, with energy you sometimes wished they wouldn't have. I could not relate at all, but I had kept my mouth shut.

I stared at Benjamin. He lay on his side, sleeping deeply. His arms were wrapped around the stuffed horse, ring finger stuffed in his mouth. Saliva leaked from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto his pillow. He was pre-teen in some ways, yet still a child in so many other ways, too.

Crouching down beside him, I kissed his cheek and shook him in attempt to wake him up. He didn't. I wondered how he could sleep so much. He went to bed at eight every evening and I was the one to wake him in the mornings. Where did it go wrong? Did he not sleep until late when I would send him to bed?

"Benjamin, wake up." I removed the covers off his pajama clad body, the cold seemed to wake him. A soft, rather high groan left his mouth and he sleepily opened his eyes. Once he realised I had woken him up, he pushed the horse off his bed and pretended not to have slept with it.

He furrowed his eyebrows and reached for the blankets, covering himself. "What are you doing here?"

"Waking you up." I shrugged, tried to brush the fringe from his forehead, but he turned his face away. "I thought I could take you somewhere today. You know, a day out. Like.. how it used to be. A father- son day."

"Have you been staring at me sleep? Creepy." Benjamin mumbled out, stepping with his bare feet onto the floor. With his hair disheveled and the pattern of the stuffed horse pressed into the skin on his arm, he looked young, vulnerable. Sadness washed over me. "Isn't it everyday? A father- son day. Wasn't that what you told me? Do you hear yourself?"

Guilt almost made me throw up, but as I had taught myself, I pushed my feelings away. I stood up from his bed, sighed deeply as I shoved open his curtains and stared outside the window. "I thought you'd maybe like a movie."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"What about?"

"Ferdinand is playing. About bulls."

Benjamin remained silent. I wondered if I had hit a string of his heart, remembering it was the reason of a discussion between us last time. Even if it had been the book. Turning my face to him, I saw how he was staring down at his wiggling toes, his hair falling into his eyes.

"It's okay if you don't want to." I mumbled out. "Just thought you would like it."

The look that appeared in his eyes when he looked up at me had something vague about it. Like he was saying something, but I couldn't figure out what. At all. "Do I get to choose what to eat after for dinner?"

"Sure." I shrugged. "That's how it always has been, hasn't it? Do you want to go?" Had I lost his trust? That even our tradition raised questions in his mind? The certainty I had always given him, fading slowly?

Benjamin swallowed, pushed the blankets away and stood up from his bed. "Get out of my room." A deep frown creased his forehead. "I need to change."

I took it as a yes.

A pre-teen, but at the same time a child. He thought the movie poster and the first impressions of the movie seemed childish, but when we stood in front of the popcorn he needed the popcorn bucket that displayed the bull Ferdinand. He chose sweet popcorn with M&M toppings, which was just an expensive waste of money as the tiniest package got dumped over the popcorn. However, Benjamin seemed content, and that was what I wanted for him. I hadn't seen him often lately, because of work and the situation of Gloria and Davu. It was the least I could do to make it up to him. Perhaps, a somewhat, needed, break for him too, even if it was only for one day.

When the movie started, he had eaten one third of the popcorn already. His bottom barely hit the seat- he was sitting on the edge. His eyes were wide and his expressions moved along with the expressions of the characters in the movie. He cracked a smile so now and then, but with the lamest things, I would hear the sweet laughter of his that I hadn't heard in a very long time.

Even though the things he would laugh at were lame, in some ways because I laughed as hard, I couldn't keep my eyes off my smiling son. It had been so long since I'd seen him happy like this, and I wondered why I couldn't make him smile anymore like I used to. Did he mirror my own behaviour, or was it something else, I didn't know.

I stared at the gap between his front teeth, the way his grey eyes sparkled. And in all his excitement, he turned to me, reached for my wrist and whispered loudly. "The bee will sting his butt now and he will go crazy."

Slowly, my smile turned in confusion. "How do you know that?"

Benjamin's smile faded and he quickly stuffed his mouth full with popcorn. Clever. I thought. He'd been taught not to talk with a mouthful. And this way, he could think about an answer. "I just.. Nolan went- Arthur.."

"They went to the movie, too?" I whispered back, apologising to the mother who glared at me as I talked too loud for her liking.

Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows. "Be quiet, Papà. I can't hear the movie."

Right. He couldn't hear the loudest speakers in a cinema room, which almost drilled the eardrums out of my ears. I let it be. For the remaining of the movie, I glanced between him and the movie. Sometimes when he laughed, he'd hide his face, shaking his head at himself. Other times, he just slouched back against the back of the chair, his belly rising and falling rapidly by the impact of his laughter.

When the title song started playing, he focused on his popcorn as we walked out of the room. His dug deep, fishing the M&M's out, that had sunk all the way to the bottom of the sticky box. "I'm thirsty." He'd mumbled out, gazing at the stuffed Ferdinands.

"Do you want one of those?" I nudged my head the direction he was looking at.

I could tell his mind debated between the maturity he wanted to have, but the inner child that was still much present in him. "Papà, I'm eleven.." He didn't sound secure, as his eyes fell onto the stuffie again. He gazed at me, furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. "Come on. Did you still sleep with stuffed animals when you were eleven?" It was a rhetorical question, yet I knew he secretly wondered that.

"You don't have to sleep with it. You like bulls. It could be nice for your room." I referred to his cowboy themed bedroom.

He rolled his eyes and pointed at a bottle of coke instead. "Can I have that?"

I'd hummed at that and when he pressed the box of popcorn inside my hands as he needed to use the toilet, I quickly reached for a smaller Ferdinand and paid. Stuffing it inside my backpack, I handed him the coke when he returned. We left the building. Benjamin glanced at the stuffed bulls quickly for the last time. I had made a right decision.

Benjamin decided on KFC for dinner. We ordered, paid and got our food. He wanted to sit outside, so we found ourselves sitting on a corner seat minutes later. I watched him eat his fries, his eyes gazing the people and cars stopping by or driving past.

"Did you like the movie?"

Benjamin nodded, rinsed his fries away with iced tea and looked at me.

"Do you think there was a message in that?"

He rolled his eyes. "That's what Daniel means with English teachers wanting to find a meaning behind every single written word. Never thought his words were right until now. Papà, it was a kid movie. What could the message be?"

I could tell he knew, but found it hard to say. I stayed silent.

Benjamin sighed, hung his head low and played with the lettuce that had fallen off his burger. "Stay true to yourself, I guess? Like.. don't change for anybody else and be content with yourself."

I wanted to ask if that was what he was, seeing his behaviour had changed so much lately, but I swallowed my words away. I wanted to give him a break today. And seeing he was a thinker, no doubt those thoughts would cross his mind today or tomorrow.

"Good food?" I asked instead. He had chosen the spiciest version, whereas I had chosen the milder one, my stomach not being able to handle that.

Benjamin nodded. Took a sip of his cookie frappé and pressed his tongue to the back of his front teeth so the whipped cream would find its way through the little gap. He had learned that from me, I heard Aurora scolding me in Italian in the back of my head.

"Zev! Don't teach him something so gross."

It cracked a cheeky smile on Benjamin's face. He knew what I was thinking about. I softly flicked his cheek with my fingers as I let out a chuckle. "Did your peers see the movie?"

I watched how the sauce leaked down his chin, his shoulders going up and down as he shrugged. "Don't know. Why." He licked his fingers, taking another sip of his frappé as he gazed at me.

"Because you knew what was coming."

His expression changed. He drank almost everything at once. He furrowed his eyebrows as he dropped his head onto the table. "Brain freeze. You want a sip, Papà. It's cookies and cream."

"No, thanks." I could tell by his appearance and the tone in his voice that he was trying to avoid the subject I had just started. "What's up, Benji? Are you hiding something from me?"

"No!" He answered quickly, his eyes widening. "No, no. I'm not. What does it matter? I just looked the story up before we went."

No way he could have done that. The computer was turned off. "Why are you lying to me?"

"I'm not.. I'm not lying." Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows, looked me into my eyes. "Why'd you assume that?"

I let out a sigh. "What's up, Benjamin?"

We had finished our food. Benjamin pushed the empty wrappings and empty frappé my way, letting out an annoyed groan. He stood up, walked the direction of the car and pulled the handle of the door as long as it took me to get there, too. I opened the car. We both sat down, buckled up. I didn't start. He knew what it meant.

"I want you to talk, Benjamin. You have been acting strange for longer than today and I'm getting tired of it."

Tears of frustration appeared in his eyes. His breathing became erratic. He truly was stubborn. I gave him the silent treatment. It took him fifteen minutes before he mumbled something out.

"What?"

"I read it for a reading contest. And I won." Benjamin looked down, brows still furrowed as he played with the leftover popcorn.

"What?" Surprised was an understatement. "You read Ferdinand in a reading contest and you won?" Pride washed over me, yet the great incomprehension of him not telling me, as well as the fact that he had become so upset at home, refusing to read for months and then him joining a contest at his school. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Benjamin turned his face away, crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't make a big thing out of it."

"Sei impazzito? Benji, you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear-"

"I said don't make a big thing out of it!" Benjamin raised his voice, saliva accidentally leaving his mouth. "I don't care about any of it! You wanted me to tell how I knew what would happen so there it is. Shut up about it now, please."

"Hey." I gave him a warning tap to the back of his head. "Watch the attitude." More tears collected in the corners of his eyes, making me feel uncertain about a lot of things. What was going on? "Benji, why didn't you tell me? That's all I want to know. You know how proud I would have been if I had listened to you-"

"The invitation laid on the table the whole week and you didn't see! I wanted you to see so you could come and watch me but you sent me to Teddy every single time and I had to sleep there because you had to work and when you went to work I had the contest and you threw the invitation away because you didn't even read it." Benjamin broke in tears, sobs loud and angry, he expressed his frustration in tears. The guilt now stung my heart to the point that I started to feel sick because of it. "So I didn't tell because you don't care. Only about your stupid job and you know, Papà, you only work to push your feelings about Mamma away but you push me away too that way."

He wanted to leave the car, but before he could, I locked it. "Benjamin.." I didn't know what to say. What could I say? His words weren't less than the truth, but I didn't want to give in to that. Part of me wanted to believe that I truly had been there for him after Aurora had died, but the other part scolded me for letting him slip away because my own emotions were more important to me for some reasons. I let myself sulk and fall deep when he needed me more. "I'm so sorry. I really didn't know."

"Let it go! I'm not going to the stupid national reading competition, anyway." He kicked the glove compartment. "Now drive home. I'm tired."

I wanted to hold him, kiss his cheeks and nose, but I knew he would push me away. "Benjamin, I'm really sorry, alright? If I knew, I would have skipped every obligation of that day to listen to you only. I hope you know that."

"Drive home."

"We're talking Benjamin."

Silent tears rolled down his face and he threw his head back against the headrest with a short, subdued scream. "Please, Papà."

I waited for him to regain his grip on his emotions. Secretly, I did the same. I collected my thoughts, gazed at him as he seemed to calm down a little. "What did you win?" My voice was hoarse, but I didn't bother clearing my throat.

Benjamin wiped his face, collecting the popcorn that he had accidentally dropped. "Chocolate bars, a personalized bookmark with Beniamino Matteo Teddy Malin sewed onto it and a place in the national competition. Oh, and a cup with my name on it but next year I have to give it back to the next winner."

I stroked his cheek for a brief moment, wiping away the tears. "I'm proud of you." I started the motor, letting out a deep breath. "Where's your prize? I'd love to see it."

With a shaking head, he waved it off. "No, Papá. I.. I think I left it at Nolan's house. We will see later, when I pick it up."

"We can drive by, it's on the route anyway. Don't worry about it." I'd give everything to make him feel better about this difficult situation I had put ourselves in by my own behaviour.

"No, please." He panicked. My mind was starting to feel like a whirlwind by all of the different emotions and expressions of him today. "I'll pick it up myself, you have.. we went to the movie and got food already and-"

"Nonsense." I drove off to Daniels and arrived, Benjamin jumped out of the car.

"I'll get it myself. Stay in the car, okay?"

But questions had risen about Davu, so when I saw Daniel, I got out and followed Benjamin anyway.

"Zev!" Daniel grinned, nudged my shoulder when I walked over to him. "How have you been?"

After the small talk, Daniel gave us donuts and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't ignore the high-strung look on Benjamins face. "We just came to pick up Benjamins' prize. He left it here last time he came over."

Daniel gave me a not understanding look. "Prize? What for?" Nolan looked as confused, but the moment his gaze fell onto Benjamin, he regained his façade and cleared his throat.

"Oh, I know daddy." Nolan frowned a little, but tried to look secure of himself. "We'll get it. Oh, Benji's father have you seen our new backyard? My mum planted a few new flowers, for your wife."

"Nolan." Daniel waved him off. "Get whatever Benji left here."

"Flowers for Aurora?" I furrowed my eyebrows, to which Daniel gave me a sad smile. His fingers gripped onto my wrist as he pulled me to their garden. A small area was littered with wildflowers, Amanda was busy watering them. "Oh.." I smiled, in a bit of a pained way. "Wow."

Amanda turned her face to me, smiled as sad. "Aurora was an inspiration for many of us, wasn't she."

I hummed. A moment later, four eyes were on my face. I felt uncomfortable. Caught red-handed in mischief. Yet, I didn't know what I had done. "What is it?"

Daniel stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers, staring at Amanda, who took off her garden gloves. "Zev, I don't know if you realise, but.. every time you text us saying Benjamin is coming over for Nolan.."

Amanda sighed, stared at the young boys as they entered the backyard.

"What?" I gave him a- not understanding look. "Then what?"

Daniel shrugged, forced a smile and ruffled Benjamins' hair.

I went home with many unanswered questions. About Davu. About Benjamin. When Benjamin went to sleep, my thoughts clouded my mind and I figured Daniel meant that it was too much. How many times had I sent Benjamin to either Teddy or Nolan. I knew how they thought about raising children, the same way as Aurora and at some point, I, had done. Sending him off all the time was probably not what a parent was supposed to do. That had to be what he wanted to say.

With Ferdinand in my hands, I sat on the couch, staring at Aurora. Aurora and I just married. New parents. Memorable days of us three. I wanted to cry, but went to Benjamins room instead, and pressed the stuffed Ferdinand in his arms.

He whimpered tiredly, glanced between me and Ferdinand, cracked a small smile and went back to sleep.

When I lay in bed myself, I thought of Salomé, and when I fell asleep, I restlessly dreamed of Aurora standing in her white dress, repeating the word yes, until I questioned myself why she would say yes to a man like me in the first place.

•

Zev and Benji day.. thoughts?

I hope you like Benjamin playing a big role in the book....?

What do you think of Benjamins behaviour? Is he holding back more? Or did he spill it? Just scared of disapproval or something?

Zev? As a father?

Comments and votes much appreciated xx