Travis yanked the sunglasses free from my tentative grip, and so they wouldn’t break, I let him. He then brandished them in the air with victorious glee for a couple of seconds before bringing them down and shoving the lens against his mouth whereupon he tongued it.

I sighed and looked to where Joker was working, even though I still couldn’t see him, and cautiously (but loudly, to be heard over the distance and traffic) shared, “Travis is drooling on your sunglasses.”

Joker straightened, lugging my tire with him and tossing it with a swing of his broad, leather-jacket-covered shoulders into the trunk (something he did one-handed, which was impressive), this making my entire car bounce frighteningly.

His eyes came to me. “Got about a dozen pairs. He fucks those up, not a problem.”

Then he crouched down again.

I bit back my admonishment that he shouldn’t use the f-word. Aaron cursed all the time. I found it coarse, eventually annoying, and finally ended concerned he’d use that language around our son.

I had no idea if he did.

But he probably did.

Instead of focusing on that, I focused on the fact that Joker seemed really nice.

Not seemed, he just was.

All the people who passed me, not helping, but he stopped.

Now he was changing a tire and, except for the time my dad made me do it so he could be assured I’d know how if the time came to pass when I’d have to, I’d never done it again. But I knew it wasn’t a lot of fun.

He’d let Travis pull his whiskers, yank off his glasses, and even let slide the good possibility some baby he didn’t know would break them.

I looked to the glasses and knew they were expensive. They said LIBERTY on the side. They were attractive yet sturdy. I didn’t think he got them off a revolving rack.

And I didn’t want him to stop, help us, and lose his expensive glasses, even though he was very nice and didn’t seem to care.

“Please, baby boy, don’t break those glasses,” I whispered.

Like my eight-month-old understood me, he stopped licking the lens and shoved the glasses to me.

I grinned, murmured, “Thank you, my googly-foogly,” took the glasses and bent into him to blow on his neck.

He squealed with glee.

Since he liked that so much, like I always did, I did it again. Then again. And since I didn’t have anywhere else to put them, I shoved Joker’s sunglasses in my hair so I could adjust Travis in order to tickle him.

He squirmed in my arms and squealed louder.

Goodness, that sound was beautiful.

No better sound in the world.

Not one.