“At the lake.”
She studies me. I’m just standing there, at the table, like I’m waiting for her invitation to sit down. Like this isn’t my house too.
Finally Mom’s face changes, and the annoyance and accusation fade away. “Give me that baby,” she says, holding out her arms.
I pass Hope over, and Mom shushes and coos at her. “She’s hungry,” I say. I drop the bag and baby harness in the middle of the floor, heat a bottle for Hope, and pull the eggplant parm out of the oven. It smells amazing. I serve it up, and we all eat. I drink my beer, because warm beer is better than no beer. That was crazy cool of Mom. I look at her, somehow managing to eat her food while also feeding the baby in her arms, and something hits me—something so obvious and duh but something I never really thought about before, at least on a conscious level.
“You’re a really good mom, Mom,” I say.
She looks up, surprised. “Thanks, Ry. I’ve had practice, you know.” She nods to Hope, who’s happily chowing down on her formula.
“I know. But it’s not only the baby stuff. You’ve always been a good mom to me, no matter how old I am.”
She smiles, and the little lines next to her eyes that none of her friends have yet get all crinkly.
I take another swig. I guess I’m in the mood for talking, because I say, “Meg’s parents weren’t good parents.”
Mom just nods, like she already knew that.
I scrape my plate clean with the side of my fork and lick off the last bits of sauce and cheese. “I’m gonna get more. You want?”
“No, I’m good,” Mom says. “Thanks.”
When I sit back down, I down the last of my piss-warm beer and say the inevitable. “So, you wanted to talk.” Might as well get it over with, so I can call Mabel and see what’s going on.
Mom sets Hope’s empty bottle on the table and looks at me. “School starts a week from tomorrow, Ryden.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do with this little munchkin?”
I stare at my plate. “Alan can take her after school while I’m at soccer, and then I can pick her up and drop her off here before going to work.”
Mom shakes her head like she can’t believe how thick I’m being. “First of all, it’s not fair to rely on Alan like this. You’re not paying him, and it’s his senior year too, you know. Hope isn’t his kid.”
I wish she were.
Whoa, where did that thought come from? I mean, if I had it all to do again, obviously I would have put on a fucking condom, pill or no pill. But that’s not what the thought was. The thought was I wished Alan were Hope’s dad. That would mean everything would be the same—Meg would be gone, Hope would be here. Only, Meg and Alan would have…
No. I do not wish that at all. He’s just so much better at taking care of Hope than I am…
“Ryden?” Mom says.
Huh? “What? Sorry, I was spacing out.”
“I can see that. Please, we need to focus. This is serious, bud.”
“Sorry.”
“I think you should really rethink the Alan thing. But the more pressing issue is what we’re going to do with Hope during the hours when you—and Alan—are at school.”
“I wish Downey High School had a day care center like UCLA does,” I say on a sigh.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think there’s much of a demand for that.”
True.
Mom gets up and helps herself to another beer. She doesn’t offer me one this time.
“I’ve tried everything I could think of, Mom. I called Grandma and Grandpa, I went to Meg’s parents’…I don’t know what else to do.”
Mom nods. “Your check from Grandma and Grandpa came yesterday,” she says. “I put it on the hall table for you. Did you see it?”
“No.” I’ve been d-i-s-t-r-a-c-t-e-d.
Mom’s looking at me, and every time I glance up from my empty plate, I catch sight of her tired eyes and hate myself just a little bit more for putting her through all of this.
Finally she says, “I asked around, did some digging. We have a couple of options.”
“You did? We do?”
“Option one: There’s a government-subsidized child care facility downtown that offers a sliding fee scale. I called them, and they would charge us $275 a week.”
I’m about to say that sounds amazing—I make about that at Whole Foods. I’m sure Mom will help with other expenses while we figure it out. Maybe I can ask for a raise at work too. But she keeps talking.
“The environment there isn’t great though, Ryden. There are a lot of children and not enough staff. Hope probably wouldn’t get very much, if any, personal attention. And the facilities definitely leave something to be desired. And who knows what kind of germs are being spread around.”
“Well, what’s option two?”