vanish off to wherever he goes in the evenings. He doesn’t stick around. Because she doesn’t really want to spend time with him, either. She just wants him to come when called, so she can prove she has some agency in their relationship.”
Benny had done a lot of therapy, I was starting to understand. “Why don’t they just get divorced?”
He offered a small, bitter pill of a laugh. “Money, silly. It’s always about money.”
For the rest of that afternoon, he retreated into himself, as if he couldn’t stop chewing over his mother’s behavior. I thought of it, too; the way she flicked through the pages of the magazine, as if compelled by some impulse she couldn’t control. We smoked pot and then he drew in one of his notebooks while I did homework, sometimes feeling him studying me from the other end of the couch; and I couldn’t help wondering if seeing me through his mother’s eyes had damaged the picture he had of me. I left early that afternoon, well before dusk; and when I arrived back at home and found my mother in the kitchen, making macaroni with her hair up in curlers, I felt a warm pulse of gratitude.
I gave her a hug from behind. “My baby.” She turned in my arms, and squeezed me into her bosom. “What’s this about?”
“Nothing, really,” I murmured into her shoulder. “You’re OK, right, Mom?”
“Better than ever.” She pushed me back so she could examine me, traced the edge of my face with a pink-manicured finger. “And what about you? School is going well, right? You like it? You’re getting good grades?”
“Yeah, Mom.” I was, despite the afternoons I was spending getting stoned with Benny. I liked being challenged by my homework; I had grown to love the school’s progressive atmosphere and the teachers who engaged us with ideas instead of just handing out multiple-choice tests. Over six months in, and I was already getting mostly As. My English teacher, Jo, had recently pulled me aside and handed me a brochure for a summer program at Stanford University. “You should apply next year, after junior year. It could really give you a leg up getting into college,” Jo had said. “I know the director, and I could give you a personal referral.”
I’d slipped the brochure onto my bookshelf and every once in a while, I’d pull it out and study the kids on the cover, in their matching purple T-shirts and radiant smiles, backpacks laden with books and arms slung around each other. Of course it was too expensive; and yet for the first time, that life felt like it was within reach. Maybe we’d find a way.
My mother was beaming. “Good. I’m so proud of you, baby.”
Her smile was so genuine, so truly pleased by my smallest of achievements. I thought of Judith Liebling. Whatever my mother’s faults may be, she certainly wasn’t cold. She would never belittle me; I would never come up short. Instead, she’d put everything on the line for me, over and over again. And now we had made our nest here, safe and warm against the elements. “Why don’t you call in sick tonight and we’ll stay home and watch a movie?” I asked.
Distress crossed her face. “Too late for that, baby. The manager loses his mind when someone misses a shift. But I’m off work on Sunday, why don’t we go down to the Cobblestone and see what’s playing in the theater there? There’s a James Bond film, I think. We could get pizza beforehand.”
I dropped my arms. “Sure.”
The timer on the stove went off and she darted away to drain the macaroni. “Oh, and don’t worry if I’m late tonight. I offered to do a double.” She gave me a radiant, dimpled smile as she maneuvered the pot to the sink, steam blurring her features. “Keeping us in macaroni!”
* * *
—
One day in mid-April, I looked around and realized that spring had arrived. The mountain peaks were still capped with icy crusts but down at lake level rain showers had wiped out the last of the snowdrifts. With the new season, Stonehaven felt like a different