Same Son, Bigger Sneakers

His long fingers wrap around the head of his newborn son, and I wonder: When was it that this boy became a man?

He is long past this age of speculation, a married man now in his early 30s, but I still remember the exact way he wore out his sneakers when he was 7. I could flip over the shoes tossed just inside the front door or dropped at the side of the bathtub or kicked under the bottom bunk and point out precisely where his busy feet had tried the patience of another sole.

What a silly thing to remember, I think, as I watch him hold the squirming bundle tightly, his eyebrows rising in rhythm with his son's.

"Hey, now," he says, adjusting the 2-week-old baby's silly knit cap. At the sound of his father's voice, the tiny head turns.

My mind reaches back, clawing at memories that flutter like snapshots dropped from an open window. I grab one and see him crouched behind home plate at 13, his freckled face a map of dust under the mask that no one else wanted to wear in the summer heat. I grab another snapshot and see the two of us sitting on the balcony in the dark, his voice trembling as he described the fourth-grade bully, who ordered the boys in the locker room to raise their hands if they agreed he was not their friend. Four months later, yet another snapshot: He is wearing his karate gi at the front of his hushed class, explaining that he dare not fight them because his hands had become such lethal weapons.

"Just wait," I want to say, as I watch my son stroke the face of his baby boy. "You think you love him now. Just wait."

When he was 25, he announced to his little sister and me that no way, no how, would he ever get married. No wife, no children. It just wasn't in the cards.

OK, we said. Whatever you say.

Three years later, he met a young woman who made him giggle and loved books as much as he did. And she swooned when he played the guitar.

"Oh, brother," his sister said.

At their wedding, his sister turned to me and said, "He's actually handsome now."

Sisters , he would have said, if only we could have distracted him from staring at his bride.

A week after his wife told him she was pregnant, he built bookshelves in their basement.

"My version of nesting, I guess," he said, grinning. "I had to get organized."

Two weeks ago, he called in the early evening and said, "She's in labor." His voice was loud and desperate because she was two months early and 10 hours away at a baby shower in Long Island. There were no more flights, and for the first time in a long time, it seemed that what he needed most was a steady voice on my end of the line.

We talked through options, knowing there was only one. A half-hour later, he was on the road, and we took turns calling as he drove through the night. His calls were far more exciting.

Call No. 2: "They've moved her to another hospital."

Call No. 3: "I have a son."

"I have a son," he kept saying. I have a son .

The updates kept coming; the news grew steadily better. He'd relay another detail; I'd flesh it out minutes later with research from the Internet. Mile by mile, the narrative of a new life unfolded.

About 5:30 in the morning, the phone went quiet. I waited. And waited.

Hours later, he finally called: "I cannot describe this," he said. "But I will try."

Now here I am, sitting opposite my son as he marvels at what love can bring. He coos as the tiny hand grasps his finger, lifts his left ankle to rest across his right knee. That's when I see it. Bigger sneaker, same worn-out spot on the sole.

Just wait, I want to tell him. You think you love him now.

Just wait.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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