I’m watching The Wonder Years with Eva on Netflix. Thirty-plus years ago, I watched every episode unfold from my basement bedroom on a 14-inch TV. At first I wondered if it would lose its magic, now that I’m as old as the parents instead of the kids, and now that I know the narrator is actually the bumbling burglar who experiences humiliating defeat at the hands of Macaulay Culkin. But watching my eight-year-old fall in love with Kevin, Winnie, Paul, Karen and even Wayne, when he has his moments, I discovered it’s even more magical the second time around.At one point, while Kevin tried to woo Winnie with a $9 rust-proof quasi-amethyst going steady ring, Eva whispered, “Kevin’s funny.”
I recognized that starry look in her eyes. And I conducted a full debate in my head before I finally broke the news.
“In real life, his name is Fred,” I revealed. “And today, he’s as old as I am.”
I heard a record player scratch in my head. And for the next two minutes, she watched in stunned silence.
I waited for her interest in Kevin, the series, and that little fragment of my teenage existence to fizzle and evaporate before my eyes. Instead, she had a request.
“Can you show me what he looks like now?”
They say in every new relationship, there are bumps in the road. My girl tightens her struts and faces them head on.
