“Thank you,” she said, when he set the box on the table. Her voice was low and toneless. Her hair was down, hanging in her face. When he was little he’d thought that his mom was as pretty as a movie star, or as any of the models from the hair magazines that she’d bring home from work, but now he could see how much of her beauty depended on makeup—pencils that made her eyes look farther apart than they were, liners that made her lips not look so thin. Her hair wasn’t even blond, not really. She colored it because it was really what she called “mouse brown.” He didn’t care. Even with her face washed clean and her roots showing and her eyelashes wispy and pale without mascara, even though her eyes were a little close together and her lips were too thin, he still thought that she was beautiful.
He put out plates and napkins, but Lori only nibbled half a slice of pizza before going to her bedroom, leaving Andy alone with the TV.
He watched Jim Gardner on the local news, then Peter Jennings. He solved two puzzles on Wheel of Fortune and a whole row of sports questions on Jeopardy. At eight o’clock, The Cosby Show was on. Theo was getting bad grades in school. Andy ate four slices of pizza while Cliff and Clair talked it over. He imagined living in a big house with nice furniture and colorful art on the walls and a mom and a dad who worried about your grades (his own mom barely glanced at his report card, never noticed his A in math or the Needs Improvement he’d received for Conduct). Theo Huxtable would never have to wear a coat that some other kid had paid for. Theo’s mom would understand, without having to be told, why he would rather not have any coat at all.
That night, on the pullout couch, Andy thought about how sometimes his mom would call a “love you” over her shoulder before she went to her bedroom and he took the cushions, still warm from her body, off the couch to make up his bed, or she’d say it in the morning before he left for school, and she’d kiss him, leaving lipstick on his cheek. A few times he could remember her telling him that he was her baby, her one and only.
But if she loved him, why didn’t she ever get him new things? Why did she let him spend three months wearing sneakers that were held together with duct tape? Why didn’t she listen when she brought home Toughskins from the church clothing swap and he tried to tell her that none of the kids wore Toughskins, they all wore Levi’s? He’d explain, and then she’d say the thing she always said: “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”
Andy rolled over, flipping his pillow to the cool side. One of his feet was jiggling, making the bed’s frame squeak. Miles Stratton’s mother put notes in Miles’s lunch. Sometimes Miles would read them out loud in a shrill falsetto while the other kids in the lunchroom laughed. I am so glad to be your mother, he’d said. You make me proud every day. Once, when Miles wasn’t looking, Andy had pulled one of the notes out of the trash. There was a little bit of tuna fish on its corner. He’d cleaned it off as best he could, then folded it up in his own backpack. Sometimes he would read it and pretend his own mom had put it there. I love that you are an enthusiastic reader, Mrs. Stratton had written. It was funny, because Miles wasn’t really an enthusiastic reader. Neither was Andy. Still, he kept the note, and imagined that it was from his mom.
On Saturday, the day after the jacket fight, Andy got up early, put on his heaviest sweatshirt, and went running. Then he walked home, with his hood up and his hands in the kangaroo pocket, wishing he had money for hot chocolate and a doughnut. It was a chilly day, the slate-gray sky spitting snow, but everyone he saw seemed happy, bundled up in hats and mittens, carrying shopping bags. Tiny white lights twinkled from windows, green wreaths with red bows hung on doors. The Strattons had a Christmas tree that Andy could see through the window, topped with a papier-mâché angel that Miles’s sister, Melissa, had made. The angel had a gold tinsel crown, and Andy knew that under her white dress, between her legs, there was some gold tinsel pubic hair that Miles had snipped from the crown and glued there. Lori never bought a tree. “Too messy,” she’d said, even though last year Mr. Sills had dragged one to their door, a pine tree, all bundled up in plastic netting and smelling like a forest, and said he’d set it up for them and, after New Year’s, haul it away.
Back at home, he cleaned the bathroom, even though it wasn’t his turn. He was sprawled on the couch, flipping through the Batman comics that Miles had lent him, when he heard a knock on the door.
Andy grabbed the cordless phone so he could call 911 if he had to. Making sure the safety chain was in place, he cracked the door open a few inches and peeked out. A heavyset woman whose short hair was dyed a flat shade of brown was standing on the front step, with an anxious expression on her face and snowflakes melting on her cheeks. A tall, red-faced man in a shiny green satin Eagles jacket was beside her. These were his grandparents, Lori’s mom and dad. He hadn’t seen them in almost exactly a year. Now here they were, with their arms full of gifts.