Other People's Houses(71)

“I weigh more than you. It’s like if you throw something bigger, it goes farther.”

“I don’t think so. I think things go the same farness.”

Incredulous snorting noise, followed by the dragging of feet through the gravel under the swing. “Really? So if I throw a feather it’s going to go as far as if I throw a rock? Doofus.”

More dragging. “My dad told me if you drop a ton of feathers and a ton of stones they’re both going to hit the ground at the same time.”

There was a pause. “Watch and learn, sensei.” Theo picked up a small piece of gravel and a stick.

“Sensei is the teacher, you loser.”

Theo paused, his arm back. “You’re right, whatever. Watch and learn, wormbrain.”

He threw the piece of gravel, which arced over the garden and landed somewhere unseeably distant. Then he threw the stick, which landed closer.

“No! You didn’t throw it as hard. Watch.”

Milo picked up a rock and a stick and demonstrated. He had slightly better physical coordination than Theo, and managed to get the two things closer together.

“No way! You did that on purpose. This won’t work unless you throw them the same.” Theo looked pissed, suddenly. “I don’t want to play this anymore.” He turned back to the swings, but hesitated. “You’re not supposed to throw stones anyway.”

“I think,” responded Milo, judiciously, “you’re not supposed to throw stones AT things or people or dogs or something. You can throw them into space.”

“How can you throw them into space? You’d have to be Iron Man or something.” Theo sat on his swing. “Do you know what time it is?”

Milo shook his head. “I don’t have a phone. Do you have a phone?”

Theo made a face. “As if.”

Milo’s face brightened. “Maybe now that your mom and dad aren’t in the same place you could get a phone? Like, what if you were here and you needed to ask your mom something you could call her. Or FaceTime or something.” He tried to look modest. “My big sister might be getting a phone.” He looked rueful. “But she won’t let me use it. She’s a teenager. She doesn’t like me anymore.”

“Why?”

Milo shrugged a bit. “No idea. One day she just stopped liking me.”

Theo started swinging. “Maybe she’ll start again.”

“Maybe.”

Theo swung higher. “My dad doesn’t like my mom anymore. One day he did, then one day he didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I think she cheated on him.”

Milo looked at his friend, puzzled. “What’s that?”

“I think she kissed someone else. That’s what Eloise said at school. She said sometimes dads kiss other women and then they have to go live somewhere else. That’s what happened to her dad, and she thought maybe that was what happened to my mom.”

“Another dad kissed her? But then isn’t that the dad’s fault?”

Theo swung really high, and his answers dopplered in and out to Milo. “I don’t know. I don’t know why it matters. I kiss Grandma all the time, no one says I have to go live somewhere else.”

Milo started swinging. Lally suddenly appeared at the kitchen door. “Theo! Your dad says it’s time to go.”

Theo stopped pumping and drooped on his swing, reaching out with his toes for the gravel.

“Are you seeing your mom today?”

Theo had slowed the swing, and now jumped when it was still going pretty high. He landed well, then bent down and picked up a handful of gravel. He pulled back his arm and let it rip, sending the gravel all the way across the garden, into the hedge on the far side.

“No,” he said shortly. “Not today.”





Thirty-one.


Tuesday morning Ava watched her mom talking to Iris as Wyatt climbed into the back of the car, their bare early morning faces equally familiar to her. Iris was cooler, though, Ava thought. Her mom was nice, she loved her mom, but she was overweight and dressed like a scruffy teenage boy. Iris was tall and slim and more stylish, and Ava felt bad inside for even thinking it. When she’d been younger her mom was the most beautiful woman in the world. The eight-year-old Ava had gazed up at her mom’s warm brown eyes and soft hair and marveled at her good fortune in having a mom so lovely. Then she’d heard a friend of hers describe Ava’s mom as fat, and even though the friend had suddenly noticed Ava and added quickly, Not very fat, you know, just a little bit fat . . . it was too late. Ava had watched her mom walk into the playground that afternoon and noticed for the first time that she was bigger than the other moms. After a while she decided it didn’t matter, that she liked her mom’s soft lap, her hugs and warm skin, everything about her gentle, not a hard edge anywhere. But as she got older, and started paying attention to the opinions of other kids, to pictures in magazines, to shows on TV, she realized it was OK to be a bit ashamed. Everyone was a bit ashamed of fat people, even fat people.

She went through a phase of encouraging her mom to buy new clothes, suggesting they go on walks together, but then her own hormones had arrived and she’d stopped worrying about anyone’s appearance but her own. Now, at fourteen, she knew her discomfort about her mother’s appearance was a cultural norm, and called bullshit, while at the same time wishing her mom would drop her a little farther from the school gates. Then she hated herself for that feeling, and resolved to hug her mom more and spend more time with her, but then she would come home from school and her mom would ask about homework and Ava would hate her again. She was so irritating; her little habits of singing as she cleaned the kitchen, of talking to the dogs as if they were people, her endless supply of hooded sweatshirts and unfashionable jeans. Lots of moms at Ava’s school were super hip; it was that kind of school. Sharing clothes with their kids, going shopping together, getting manicures and whatever the fuck it was you did at nail places. Ava didn’t want to be one of those girls, she really didn’t, but sometimes it was hard not to want to fit in. It was easier to let the current carry you along.