“Here, Mom. On the rocks.”
He didn’t know why she laughed so hard, but he was glad to see her so happy.
*
Christopher’s mother sipped her beer on the rocks, and made yum yum sounds until her son beamed with pride for his clever—if somewhat misguided—solution to her warm beer problem. After her lottery numbers came up short…AGAIN…she tore up the lottery ticket and put a DVD in the old player she got at a garage sale back in Michigan. The first movie started. It was an old musical she loved as a kid. One of her few good memories. Now one of his. When their feast was done, and the Von Trapps were safely in Switzerland, they opened their fortune cookies.
“What’s yours say, Mom?” he asked.
“You will be fortunate in everything you put your hands on.”
…in bed, she thought and did not say.
“What about yours, buddy?” she asked.
“Mine is blank.”
She looked. His fortune was indeed blank except for a series of numbers. He looked so disappointed. The cookies were bad enough. But no fortune?
“This is actually good luck,” she said.
“Really?”
“No fortune is the best fortune. Now you get to make up your own. Wanna trade?”
He thought about it long and hard and said, “No.”
With negotiations over, it was time for the second movie. Before the film had finished, and the good guys had won the war, Christopher had fallen asleep on her lap. She sat there for a long time, looking down at him sleeping. She thought back to the Friday Night Movies when they watched Dracula, and he pretended he wasn’t scared even though he would only wear turtleneck sweaters for a month.
There is a moment childhood ends, she thought. And she wanted his moment to happen a long time from now. She wanted her son to be smart enough to get out of this nightmare, but not smart enough to know that he was actually inside one.
She picked up her sleeping boy and took him to his sleeping bag. She kissed his forehead and instinctively checked to make sure he didn’t have a fever. Then, she went back to the kitchenette. And when she finished her beer on the rocks, she made another just like it. Because she realized she was going to remember this night.
The night she stopped running.
It had been four years.
Four years since she found her husband dead in a bathtub with a lot of blood and no note. Four years of grief and rage and behavior that felt out of body. But enough was enough. Stop running. Stop smoking. Stop killing yourself. Your kid deserves better. So do you. No more debt. No more bad men. Just the peace of a life well fought and won. A parent with a job is a hero to someone. Even if that job was cleaning up after old people in a retirement home.
She took her beer on the rocks out on the fire escape. She felt the cool breeze. And she wished it weren’t so late or she’d play her favorite Springsteen and pretend she was a hero.
As she finished her drink and the last cigarette she’d ever light, she was content, watching the smoke curl and disappear into the August night and the beautiful stars behind that big cloud.
That cloud that looked like a smiling face.
Chapter 3
The week after his mom got the job was the best Christopher had in a long time. Every morning, he looked out the window and saw the Laundromat across the street. And the telephone pole. And the streetlight with the little tree.
And the clouds.
They were always there. There was something comforting about them. Like the way that leather baseball gloves smell. Or the time Christopher’s mom made Lipton soup instead of Campbell’s because Christopher liked the little noodles better. The clouds made him feel safe. Whether he and his mom were buying school supplies or clothes, erasers or stationery. The clouds were there. And his mom was happy. And there was no school.
Until Monday.
The minute he woke up Monday, Christopher saw the cloud face was gone. He didn’t know where it went, but he was sad. Because today was the day. The one day he really needed the clouds to comfort him.
The first day of school.
Christopher could never tell his mom the truth. She worked so hard to get him into these great schools that he felt guilty for even thinking it. But the truth was he hated school. He didn’t mind not knowing anyone. He was used to that. But there was this other part that made him nervous about going to a new school. Simply put,
He was dumb.
He might have been a great kid, but he was a terrible student. He would have preferred it if she had yelled at him for being dumb, like Lenny Cordisco’s mom. But she didn’t. Even when he brought home his failed math tests, she always said the same thing.
“Don’t worry. Keep trying. You’ll get it.”
But he did worry. Because he didn’t get it. And he knew he never would. Especially at a hard school like Mill Grove Elementary.
“Hey. We’re going to be late for your first day. Finish your breakfast.”
As Christopher finished his Froot Loops, he tried to practice reading the back of the box. Bad Cat was the cartoon on it. Bad Cat was the most funniest cartoon on Saturday mornings. Even in this cereal box version, he was hilarious. Bad Cat went up to a construction site and stole some hard hat man’s sandwich. He ate it all up. And when they caught him, he said his famous line.
“Sorry. Were you going to finish that?”
But this morning, Christopher was too nervous to laugh at the cartoon. So, he immediately looked for other things to distract himself. His eyes found the carton of milk. There was a picture of a missing girl. She was smiling without her two front teeth. Her name was Emily Bertovich. That’s what Christopher’s mom told him. To him, the name looked like…
Eimyl Bretvocih.
“We’re late. Let’s go, buddy,” Mom said.
Christopher drank the little bit of sugar milk left in the bowl for courage, then zipped up his red hoodie. As they drove to school, Christopher listened to his mother explain how “technically” they didn’t exactly “live” in the school district, so she kind of “lied” that her work address was their residence.
“So, don’t tell anyone we live in the motel, okay?”
“Okay,” he said.
As the car rolled over the hills, Christopher looked at the different sections of town. The cars in the front lawns on blocks. Houses with chipped paint and missing shingles. The pickup truck with the sleepaway camper in the driveway for hunting trips. Kind of like Michigan. Then, they moved to the nicer section. Big stone houses. Manicured lawns. Shiny cars in the driveways. He would have to add that to the graph paper sketch of his mom’s house.
As they drove, Christopher searched the sky for clouds. They were gone, but he did see something he liked. No matter the neighborhood, it was always close by. Big and beautiful with tons of trees. All green and pretty. For a moment, he thought he saw something run into it. Fast as lightning. He wasn’t sure what. Maybe a deer.
“Mom, what is that?” he asked.
“The Mission Street Woods,” she said.
When they arrived at school, Christopher’s mother wanted to give him a sloppy kiss in front of all the new kids. But he needed his dignity, so she gave him a brown bag and fifty cents for his milk instead.
“Wait for me after school. No strangers. If you need me, call Shady Pines. The number is sewed into your clothes. I love you, honey.”