Beast(81)

“You’re into it. The omnipresent worrying is at bay.”

“But you know why I worry, right? It’s what moms do.”

“Most moms,” I say, feeling for JP.

“Maybe I’m not supposed to admit this, but in junior high when it appeared you were into girls, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Not because being gay is bad or anything, but because you don’t want your kid’s life to be any harder than it has to be. People can be so heinous,” she says. “When I was out in the car with Jamie’s mom, Jessica, she was telling me how scared she is for her daughter. How much she loves Jamie and how every night she loses sleep worrying that bad things are always waiting around the corner. That she worries all the time about how hard Jamie’s life might be. I…didn’t want you to be involved in that. I wanted you to stay away to make things easier for you. It was wrong. Will you forgive me?”

“I guess so. It’s awful, but I get it.”

“So I want in on this do-over too.”

“Then I guess you’d be like, how nice we get to have my son’s girlfriend over for dinner. Let’s make crab cakes with real crab.”

“Real crab, huh?” She laughs. “I’m very happy to hear we’ve won the lottery in this alternate reality.”

“Just sucks it’s only that. This is a whole new world.”

A whole new world. Since I’m delirious, all I can picture is a boat made of souls, tearing through the surf and crashing onto a beach made of stars. They explode on impact, flying into space. Some stronger than others. Some disappear completely. “I think about Dad all the time.”

“Me too.”

“I’ve never needed him more than this past year.”

Mom holds me even tighter. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“What do you think he’d say about me and Jamie?”

“Well…” She rests a finger on her chin. “I think all parents want their kids to be happy. And I think good parents learn and adapt so that happiness grows. He would do the same.”

“Do you think Dad’s out there?” I ask. “Not like in heaven or anywhere like that, but what made him a person, does that exist?”

“It has to. I need it to. He is still very much alive for me,” Mom says.

“Is that why you never remarried?”

She swallows with a thump. “Partly.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t imagine loving another person the way I loved your dad,” she says. “When we met in college, I fell madly, hopelessly in love with him. All my friends thought I was nuts because he was too big and too tall and too this and too that. You know what that’s like; you’re just like him.”

“I do.”

“But I didn’t care. I knew we were meant to be. Then we had our little surprise, you, right before senior year. We decided he would stay in school and I’d get my degree later. By the time we bought this house, he already had cancer. We just didn’t know it yet,” she says. “We had so many dreams for this place. We were going to plant a row of arborvitae right over there.” She points. “Change out that ugly fence for a new one.”

“Why don’t we do those things, you and I?”

“Time. Money. It all slips away.” Mom sits there. I don’t think I ever noticed how sad she was before. I always thought the sighing and the pining was her just being a mom.

“We need to sell the house,” I say.

“I’ll never do such a thing.”

“We can sell it, move to an apartment. It’ll be fine,” I say. “It’d be a lot less stress.”

“You’re my number one priority.” She hugs me tight. “You come first.”

“Don’t you think Dad would want both of us to be happy? I’m not a Labrador; I don’t need a yard.”

She lets me go. Her gaze slides to the shitty chain-link fence.

“I think it’s time we get happy,” I say.

“Perhaps you’re onto something.”

Now I hug her. “We’re going to be okay.”

She stops and holds my stubbly cheeks in her hands. “I’m very proud of you.”

“You are?”

“Of course I am! You’re a dream kid,” she says. “Most of the time.”

“Ha-ha.”

My hair has grown since fall and she brushes some off my forehead. “I think we should have Jamie over for dinner,” she says.

“I already told you, that’s out.”

“Well, maybe another girl sometime. Or boy.”

I look up to the sky. “I know that book you have gave you a million options to support in the most helpful Helpy McHelp-Help way, but here’s the honest truth: I’m just a guy who likes a girl. So I’m whatever that’s called and that’s it.”

“Okay,” she says. “Sounds good to me.”

My face is crusty and my butt is cold. The sun is up and there’s not much more to this day than an eventual trip to the hospital. I need sleep. My mom nuzzles me like a kitten or cub or something and I bust up laughing.

“What?” she cries out.

“Nothing. I love you.”

“Well, good, because I love you,” she says. “I’m freezing. Come inside with me and get ready for school.”