“I want a pet,” Chris announced, bending over to scratch ears.
I had taken pizza from the freezer and was tossing a salad. “Ask your Mom.”
“Like I haven’t?” he returned, sounding annoyed. “She always says no. She says they tie you down. I keep telling her I’ll do the feeding and stuff, but it’s like she can’t handle anything more than me.”
She could barely handle him, I thought and, when his eyes met mine, knew he agreed. He looked away without saying the words, and actually said nothing more of substance until he’d eaten three huge pieces of the pizza, a large helping of salad, and half a dozen Oreos. We were cleaning up, me at the sink, him handing over glasses and plates, when he said, “She doesn’t have many friends.”
I put the last dish in the dishwasher. “She does.”
“Not like close friends, only you.” He paused. “Maggie?”
As I closed the dishwasher, I met his gaze and raised my brows in inquiry.
“You always talk to me like I’m a grown-up. I need you to do that now, because I don’t know who else to ask. Since all this happened, she’s been gone—I mean, like, not physically, at least, no more than she always is—but she’s, like, in another world, and she’s biting her nails. She never did that before.”
I hadn’t noticed. But then, I had barely seen her since all hell had broken loose. That said, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. “She’s worried about you.”
“Yeah, well, if that was it, wouldn’tshebe the one telling me how bad hacking is? Wouldn’t she be the one asking questions?”
“Maybe she’s afraid of the answers.”
“I get that, but something’s off, like it’s not me that’s giving her the creeps. When she’s home, she sits there staring at the table or the floor or her phone, and she looks like she’s waiting for something.” He left the last word up in the air, like he was asking me to tell him what, but I didn’t have a clue.
Feeling useless, I wiped my hands on the dish towel.Hot chocolate,said a little voice in my head.He needs hot chocolate. With whipped cream. We both do.
Opening the cupboard, I removed cocoa powder, sugar, and vanilla. They were on the counter and I was reaching into the lower cabinet for a saucepan when he said, “What do you know about my dad?”
Bent in half, I went still. I hadn’t seenthatcoming.
I straightened holding the saucepan. “Your dad? Uh, nothing. Why?”
“She doesn’t talk to you about him?”
“Never.” I went to the fridge for milk. “You want to tell me?”
He was leaning against the counter on the far side of the sink, shifting his long legs like he didn’t know how best to arrange them, but his face was suddenly all boy, all angry. “Like Iknow?” he blurted out. “I don’t knowanything.She won’t talk about him. I mean, I getnothing.I’ve asked her abazilliontimes, but she makes a face, like the… the”—he glanced at what I held—“themilksmells bad.” His knee went in and out, in and out.“Do I look like my mother? I’m talking hair, eyes, height—like DNA—and the answer isno.I look likehim,but that’s all I know. I don’t know where he lives or what he does. I don’t even know his name.”
At the stove now, I said, “Maybe she doesn’t know it herself,” because it seemed like the only way to defend Grace’s refusal to talk. I’d had a friend in college who got pregnant during spring break, ten shots, one night, no clue until weeks later. The only problem was that I knew better.His father was a liar,Grace had told me that first night.
I couldn’t share that with Chris. I couldn’t let it be the only thing he knew about the man.
And anyway, he was shaking his head. “She knows. She just won’t tell me. Like I’ll go try to find him? Why the fuck would I do that if the guy doesn’t want me?”
“Chris.”
“Birth certificate.” His voice cracked under the press of emotion. “His name would be there, right? Wrong. Mine says I was born in Chicago, but I’m not sure it’s true. Bogus birth certificates are easy to get. Were they ever married? Are they divorced?”
I poured milk into the saucepan and added the other ingredients. The silence was charged. He was waiting for me to say something.
I lit the gas and stirred, watching white blend to cocoa as it warmed. Then, looking up, I found his eyes. They were the same soft brown as Grace’s contacts. It struck me that she wore these more often than the blues or greens. I wondered if aligning with her son was why. “I don’t know the answers to your questions, Chris. I wish I did. I just don’t.”
He stared at me for another minute, then dragged his hands up his face and through his curls. With a loud exhale, he deflated. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s only natural you’d wonder these things. At some point, Grace will give you answers.”
“You think?”
“I do. Your mother loves you.”
