Page 8

“Mom! Mom! I did it! All by myself, I did it! Tell her, Gramma, tell her I did it all on my own.”

My mother stepped out into view. It had been she who’d opened the door. As I bent down to scoop up my child, she favored me with a grin.

Her careworn face always lit with a smile when I showed up. No matter how late I was running, no matter how much of a handful my son had been, she always wore that same comforting smile. She pushed up her red horn-rimmed glasses on her nose and chuckled.

“We made cookies, and I let him roll out the dough. He did a very good job.”

I beamed a smile at my son.

“Did you, Damon? You made cookies?”

“Uh huh,” he said, bobbing his head like his neck was a spring. “I sure did.”

“Did you save me any?”

“No, I ate them all up!”

I laughed as my mother shook her head.

“You most certainly did not, Damon. I would never let you eat so many cookies before dinnertime.”

I favored my mom with an apologetic frown.

“I’m so sorry I was late. Again.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” Mom said, waving off my concerns figuratively and literally. “I love spending time with my grandbaby.”

Damon scoffed, and looked at her like she’d betrayed him.

“I’m not a baby anymore, Gramma.”

“You’ll always be my baby, sweetie.” She tousled his hair, and his sour mood lifted like a veil of fog from the sun-splashed ocean.

“Besides,” my mother continued, giving me ‘that look’ that every daughter knows all too well. Every unmarried daughter that is. “I hoped that maybe you were running late because you’d met a worthy man at last.”

“There are no worthy men,” I said without irony or a trace of sarcasm.

Mom shrugged as if to accede the point.

“Okay, thanks Mom,” I said, balancing Damon on my hip as I turned to leave. “I’ve got to get this little guy home and feed him dinner.”

“Mom,” Damon said, again sounding betrayed. “You said we could go to the park after you got off work. You promised.”

“I know, sweetie, but I didn’t know I was going to be so late.”

“You promised.”

“I know I did, but aren’t you hungry?”

Damon shook his head. Maybe with all of those cookies—I knew my mom let him have more than just one—he really wasn’t hungry yet. Besides, I remembered the last time I’d taken him to the park after dinner. The pigeons were really happy that he’d thrown up his chicken nuggets, but I was more than a little bit disturbed. Damon just got so excited at the park.

“All right, let’s go to the park,” I said. “But you have to eat all the veggies on your plate when we get home. Deal?”

“Deal!” he said excitedly. Then he offered me his hand, pinky finger extended. “Pinkie swear.”

“Pinkie swear,” I said, hooking my finger with his tiny one and shaking.

We headed back down to street level. Since the park was just a stone's throw away from my mom’s apartment, I decided we could walk. After about half a block, I set him down because he was getting heavy, not to mention squirmy.