Leo had rules and curfews and two parents who had been high school sweethearts. There were weekly Sunday dinners with his grandparents and Dave & Buster’s birthday parties for his little brother. His whole family attended every swim meet, and his mom was a dedicated member of the PTA and the aquatics booster club.
I could only imagine what he thought when he came to my house and my mom had left a fluorescent pink Post-it on the fridge to tell me she was working late and I was on my own for dinner.
“Should we DoorDash?” I asked Leo, pulling my phone from my back pocket and tapping on the app.
“We can do whatever.” He made his way to my living room, flopped down on the couch, and aimed the remote control at the TV to turn it on. “I don’t hate this, though.”
“What do you mean?” I abandoned my phone on the counter and flopped down beside him.
“Watching TV. Not even thinking about dinner.” He lingered on a channel that aired only black-and-white television shows from the fifties. My mom watched it sometimes, too. “It’s kind of nice to walk into a house and not have my mom breathing down my neck with a million questions about my AP chem test and my swim times.” He leaned his head against the back cushions of the couch. “I feel like I can breathe.” And then he did. He let out a long exhale and his whole body seemed to decompress, melting into the cushions. “I don’t even have to set the table for dinner.”
I thought about coming home alone. My own breath sometimes stopped until I was inside and had flicked on the lights, making the dark bright. Safer. Warmer.
“Right,” I said.
And it’s not like my mom wasn’t around. She came to my games. We sometimes did stuff on the weekends. On most nights she was home for dinner. But since there were only two of us, it was quiet even when we were both there.
Part of me envied the noise and organized chaos at Leo’s house. The juggling of sports schedules and the chore list tacked to the inside of the pantry door.
Is it true that we always want what we don’t have?
Did I want a sibling and a dad?
I couldn’t say.
But maybe.
I hadn’t thought about it until that moment when Leo seemed to think something about my life was better than his.
Even though it was probably just the peace and quiet and room to breathe.
I flung my leg over Leo’s knee, and we sat there on the couch, flipping through channels, eventually getting sucked into whatever reality show was on MTV.
We didn’t order dinner.
Because we both fell asleep.
Grueling workout schedules caught up to both of us, and we were like an old married couple that couldn’t stay up past ten o’clock on a Friday night. We both jolted awake when my mom came home, the kitchen door clicking shut too loudly behind her as she came into the house from the garage.
She wandered into the living room and said hello to both of us.
I discreetly swiped at my mouth, worried I’d drooled all over Leo’s shoulder as I had a tendency to do when I was the kind of bone-tired that made me pass out on the couch.
All clear.
I studied my mom as she checked the dead bolt on the front door.
She wasn’t in work clothes. She was in a little black dress with spaghetti straps. And spiky heels with thin straps of ribbon that crisscrossed her ankles. She smiled to herself, like she’d suddenly remembered a funny story someone had told her. I could smell her perfume from where I was sitting. And something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Liquor? Cigarette smoke? Her hair was mussed, too, like she’d been driving around in a convertible with the top down.
“You worked late?” I asked cautiously.
“Huh?” She balanced on one leg as she unbuckled the strap of a high heel. “Yes, right. Busy day.” She cleared her throat. “Long day.” She unbuckled her other heel and dangled both her shoes from her fingertips. “Well, I’m going to shower.”
“ ’Night,” I said.
“Good night, you two,” my mom said as she headed up the stairs.
I watched her as she went, mumbling into Leo’s shoulder, “I don’t believe her.”
“About what?”
“She wasn’t at work.”
He shrugged. “Where else would she have been?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t believe her.”
“You have to believe her. She’s your mom.”