NOT RIGHT NOW

I got home with two minutes to spare before six o’clock.

When I came into the kitchen, Grandma was cooking dinner, Mom was painting on her little easel by the back door, and my head was still on the spin cycle. I couldn’t stop thinking about the last thing Hairy said to me.

He had stories? About my dad? What kind of stories? How many?

“Well, look who it is,” Dotty said. “My favorite grandson.”

“Hey, Rafe-asaurus,” Mom said. “Thanks for making it home on time.”

I came over and she gave me a hug and kiss hello, which Mom always likes to do, even when she’s working.

“What are you painting?” I asked her.

“It’s a cityscape,” she said. “The idea of one, anyway.”

I can never tell what Mom’s abstracts are supposed to be until she clues me in, but then I can almost always see what she’s talking about. This one had a lot of straight lines going in all different directions. Kind of like city streets.

I could tell she was excited about it too. Mom hadn’t sold a painting since we moved to the city, but she sure was trying.

“What do you think, mister art student?” she said. “Am I headed in the right direction?”

“Definitely,” I said.

Mom just kind of smiled at that and went back to painting.

And even though my brain was still overflowing with everything that had happened that day, I decided right then that I wasn’t going to talk about it after all.

Not yet, anyway. I’d just barely gotten ungrounded, and Mom was as happy as I’d seen her in a long time. Also, Dotty was making pancakes, and I love breakfast for dinner.

Why would I want to mess with all that?

So instead of having some big, uncomfortable conversation that night, we talked about painting instead. And drawing. And school. And the family of pigeons living on the roof across the street.

I didn’t know when it was going to be a good time to start asking Mom all those Dad questions. I just knew that right now wasn’t it. So for the time being, I was going to keep them to myself and my drawing pad.

(And to Leo, of course.)