“Come on, Matty, eat your hot dog,” Gloria coaxed. “I made a special trip to the store to get it for you today.”
Matthew tried to take a bite, then put it down. “I can’t, Glory.” He thought she’d be mad, but she just looked sad and said, “It’s a good thing this is the end, Matty. Neither one of us is going to last, the way we’re living.”
“Glory, why did you pack up my stuff? Are we moving to a new house?”
Her smile was bitter. “No, Matty, I told you, but you don’t believe me. You’re going home.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Where are you going?”
“Well, for a while I’m going home to visit my daddy. I haven’t seen him in the whole time you haven’t seen Mommy. After that, well, I guess I’ll try to get my career on track. Okay, I’m not going to make you eat that hot dog. How about some ice cream?”
Matthew didn’t want to tell Glory that nothing tasted good anymore. She had packed away almost all his toys and cars and coloring books and crayons. She had even taken the picture he was drawing of Mommy, the one he had put back in the box because he didn’t want to finish it. He didn’t want to throw it away, though. And she had packed the bar of soap that smelled like Mommy.
Every single day he kept trying to remember what it was like to be with Mommy. Her long hair that sometimes tickled his nose. Her robe and how it felt when she wrapped him inside with her. All the animals in the zoo. Sometimes he said their names over and over when he was in bed. Elephant. Gorilla. Lion. Monkey. Tiger. Zebra. Like A, B, C, D. Mommy had told him that it was fun to put letters and words together. E is for elephant. He knew he was forgetting some of them and he didn’t want to. Glory sometimes gave him DVDs with animals in them, but it wasn’t the same as seeing them with Mommy at the zoo.
After lunch, Glory said, “Matty, why don’t you watch one of the movies on your DVD. I have to finish packing. Close the door of your room.”
Matthew knew that Glory probably wanted to watch television. She did that every day, but never let him see it. His television only worked on the DVD setting, and he had a lot of movies. But he didn’t want to watch one now.
Instead when he went up to his room, he laid down and pulled the blanket up over him. He forgot and his hand crept under the pillow for the soap that smelled like Mommy, but it wasn’t there. Matthew was so sleepy, he closed his eyes and hardly noticed that he was crying.
Margaret/Glory/Brittany finished the hot dog that Matthew had barely touched and sat reflectively at the kitchen table. She looked around. “Crummy house, crummy kitchen, crummy life,” she said aloud. Her anger at herself for having gotten into this situation in the first place had been mingled with a sense of sadness. It had come over her during the night and she knew it had to do with her father.
Something was wrong with Daddy. She knew it in her bones. Her hand reached for her cell phone, but then she pulled it back. I’ll be with him by tomorrow night, she thought, I’ll surprise him.
She said it aloud. “I’ll surprise him.”
The words sounded hollow and even foolish to her ears.