Who Do You Love

by Jennifer Weiner

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. Lori shook her head.

  “But you get something,” she said. “There’s money in my wallet.” She moved her hands away from his face, trying to smile. “You’re a growing boy.”

  He wouldn’t take her money. Not on that night. Instead, he took down the envelope on the top shelf of the closet where he kept his own savings, the two dollars he got for feeding Mrs. Green’s cats on weekends when she went to visit her mother in Virginia and the five that Mrs. Cleary had given him for teaching Dylan Cleary how to ride a bike, the quarters and fifty-cent pieces that he’d collected for shoveling neighbors’ steps and sidewalks in the winter. The money was supposed to be for a bike. He’d been saving up since Miles had gotten a mountain bike the year before. He took out ten dollars, ordered a pizza with mushrooms, his mother’s favorite, and gave the guy a dollar tip when he came.

  “Thank you,” she said, when he set the box on the table. Her voice was low and toneless. Her hair was down, hanging in her face. When he was little he’d thought that his mom was as pretty as a movie star, or as any of the models from the hair magazines that she’d bring home from work, but now he could see how much of her beauty depended on makeup—pencils that made her eyes look farther apart than they were, liners that made her lips not look so thin. Her hair wasn’t even blond, not really. She colored it because it was really what she called “mouse brown.” He didn’t care. Even with her face washed clean and her roots showing and her eyelashes wispy and pale without mascara, even though her eyes were a little close together and her lips were too thin, he still thought that she was beautiful.

  He put out plates and napkins, but Lori only nibbled half a slice of pizza before going to her bedroom, leaving Andy alone with the TV.

  He watched Jim Gardner on the local news, then Peter Jennings. He solved two puzzles on Wheel of Fortune and a whole row of sports questions on Jeopardy. At eight o’clock, The Cosby Show was on. Theo was getting bad grades in school. Andy ate four slices of pizza while Cliff and Clair talked it over. He imagined living in a big house with nice furniture and colorful art on the walls and a mom and a dad who worried about your grades (his own mom barely glanced at his report card, never noticed his A in math or the Needs Improvement he’d received for Conduct). Theo Huxtable would never have to wear a coat that some other kid had paid for. Theo’s mom would understand, without having to be told, why he would rather not have any coat at all.

  That night, on the pullout couch, Andy thought about how sometimes his mom would call a “love you” over her shoulder before she went to her bedroom and he took the cushions, still warm from her body, off the couch to make up his bed, or she’d say it in the morning before he left for school, and she’d kiss him, leaving lipstick on his cheek. A few times he could remember her telling him that he was her baby, her one and only.

  But if she loved him, why didn’t she ever get him new things? Why did she let him spend three months wearing sneakers that were held together with duct tape? Why didn’t she listen when she brought home Toughskins from the church clothing swap and he tried to tell her that none of the kids wore Toughskins, they all wore Levi’s? He’d explain, and then she’d say the thing she always said: “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”

  Andy rolled over, flipping his pillow to the cool side. One of his feet was jiggling, making the bed’s frame squeak. Miles Stratton’s mother put notes in Miles’s lunch. Sometimes Miles would read them out loud in a shrill falsetto while the other kids in the lunchroom laughed. I am so glad to be your mother, he’d said. You make me proud every day. Once, when Miles wasn’t looking, Andy had pulled one of the notes out of the trash. There was a little bit of tuna fish on its corner. He’d cleaned it off as best he could, then folded it up in his own backpack. Sometimes he would read it and pretend his own mom had put it there. I love that you are an enthusiastic reader, Mrs. Stratton had written. It was funny, because Miles wasn’t really an enthusiastic reader. Neither was Andy. Still, he kept the note, and imagined that it was from his mom.

  On Saturday, the day after the jacket fight, Andy got up early, put on his heaviest sweatshirt, and went running. Then he walked home, with his hood up and his hands in the kangaroo pocket, wishing he had money for hot chocolate and a doughnut. It was a chilly day, the slate-gray sky spitting snow, but everyone he saw seemed happy, bundled up in hats and mittens, carrying shopping bags. Tiny white lights twinkled from windows, green wreaths with red bows hung on doors. The Strattons had a Christmas tree that Andy could see through the window, topped with a papier-mâché angel that Miles’s sister, Melissa, had made. The angel had a gold tinsel crown, and Andy knew that under her white dress, between her legs, there was some gold tinsel pubic hair that Miles had snipped from the crown and glued there. Lori never bought a tree. “Too messy,” she’d said, even though last year Mr. Sills had dragged one to their door, a pine tree, all bundled up in plastic netting and smelling like a forest, and said he’d set it up for them and, after New Year’s, haul it away.

  Back at home, he cleaned the bathroom, even though it wasn’t his turn. He was sprawled on the couch, flipping through the Batman comics that Miles had lent him, when he heard a knock on the door.

  Andy grabbed the cordless phone so he could call 911 if he had to. Making sure the safety chain was in place, he cracked the door open a few inches and peeked out. A heavyset woman whose short hair was dyed a flat shade of brown was standing on the front step, with an anxious expression on her face and snowflakes melting on her cheeks. A tall, red-faced man in a shiny green satin Eagles jacket was beside her. These were his grandparents, Lori’s mom and dad. He hadn’t seen them in almost exactly a year. Now here they were, with their arms full of gifts.

  “Andy?” said his grandma, in a high, trembling voice. Andy’s stomach clenched.

  “Merry Christmas,” said his grandfather. “How about letting us come out of the cold?”

  “We brought you cocoa,” said his grandma, and held up a cup from Wawa for Andy to see. “And some little things for you and your mom.”

  “I can’t,” said Andy, pushing the words through numb lips, and even though he felt sad, the words came out sounding angry. My house, my rules, Lori had told him, over and over. I never want them to darken my door again. The last time her parents had come over was for dinner on Christmas Eve the year before, and there had been a terrible fight, with his mom shrieking Get out of my house, and Grandma dragging Andy into the bedroom, putting her hands over his ears. But of course he’d heard all of it, the sound of the turkey platter crashing into the wall and her father saying the n-word, and saying that Lori should learn to keep her legs shut, saying You made your bed, now see how you like lying in it.

  When he was little, like in nursery school, his grandparents were around a lot. His grandma would spend a Saturday with him while his mother worked, or sometimes he would stay at their house in Haddonfield for a whole weekend. His grandma would take him to her favorite bakery in South Philadelphia, where the ladies behind the counter, all dressed in white like nurses, would give him cookies with sprinkles and say things like “What a cutie!” and “Look at those lashes.”

  “Is he yours?” one of the ladies had once asked, and his grandma’s face had tightened as she pulled Andy against her and said in a cold voice, “Of course he’s mine.”

  Once, she’d brought him to Center City, to see the light show at Wanamaker’s and to sit on Santa’s lap. Another Christmas his grandfather gave him hockey skates, then took him to a rink. Andy had watched the other skaters, then wobbled around the rink once, going slowly, getting a feel for the ice, and before long he’d been zipping around the rink, his arms swinging easily and his blades crisscrossing in long, smooth strokes, with his grandfather waving every time he whizzed past. But then they’d stopped coming as often, and Lori’s face would get that scary, masklike look when he asked about Grandma and Grandpa. The skates had go
ne into the closet and stayed there until one day they’d disappeared.

  The only time he could count on seeing his grandparents was at Christmas. Every year they would go to their house in Haddonfield for a feast: turkey and ham and lasagna, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole with crunchy fried onions on top, rolls and biscuits and corn bread and three kinds of pie and cannoli from the bakery: the old neighborhood, his grandma called it. Andy would get to see Uncle Paul, his mother’s brother, and his wife, Aunt Denise, and their little girls, Jessica and Heather, who’d be wearing matching party dresses with sashes and poufy skirts, and his mom would bring home a shopping bag filled with leftovers that they’d eat for a week.

  A year ago, his mom had invited her parents over on Christmas Eve. She’d taken the day off from work and stayed up in the kitchen until two in the morning, squinting at cookbooks and muttering curses and kicking the oven door shut. She burned her first pan of lasagna, and when the turkey didn’t fit into the oven she’d had Andy hold it, his palms pressed against its pimpled white skin, while she’d hacked it in half and put it into two separate roasting pans. The pies had come from Acme, and the whipped cream came from a can, and there weren’t any cannoli. Andy had helped his mother carry a folding table from the Clearys’ basement and set it up in the living room. There were red and green carnations in a vase, a borrowed tablecloth on the table with the white plastic Chinet, and his mother, sweaty and pale, hurrying around and saying things like God help me and This better work and If she says one word about the plates I don’t know what I’ll do.

  An hour before her parents were supposed to arrive she’d gone to shower and dress, telling Andy to vacuum the floors and do the rest of the dishes and for God’s sake make sure the bathroom was clean. The Lori who emerged from the bedroom wasn’t a Lori that Andy had ever seen before. Instead of her usual clothing, she wore a loose red sweater with long sleeves, baggy black slacks, and black shoes with barely any heel at all. Her hair was pulled back from her face, neatly braided. She’d hardly put on any makeup, and instead of dangly earrings she wore tiny gold ones in the shape of the cross.

  The dinner had been fine, even though there was so little room in their apartment that when Andy’s grandpa sat on the couch his knees bumped the folding chairs around the table. His grandma had praised the food, saying again and again that she couldn’t have done better herself, even though the turkey was pink on the inside and the green bean casserole was burned on top. Grandpa had been silent, drinking beers right from the bottle after Lori told him she didn’t have mugs. Finally, after she’d served dessert and poured coffee, his mother had said, “There’s something I wanted to discuss.”

  “What’s that, honey?” Andy’s grandma had asked. Lori fiddled with her necklace, another gold cross. With her head bent, and no eye shadow or mascara, she looked as young as she must have looked in high school, except her nails were still long and red and filed into sharp-tipped ovals, and when she clasped her hands her sweater gaped open, showing the top of the tattoo on her breast. He thought it was a flower, or maybe it was a name, spelled out in fancy script, but that was one of the many, many things that Andy knew not to ask about. He could see the creases on her forehead, and he could hear her breathing, deep and slow, the way she did when she was angry but trying not to be.

  “Thank you for coming,” she began.

  “It was lovely,” said Andy’s grandma. His grandfather didn’t say a word. Andy thought that he was staring at the tattoo, like maybe he hadn’t known that it was there.

  “You know how important it is to me to keep Andy in Catholic school. To make sure he has a good education.”

  His grandma murmured, “Of course.” His grandfather was still silent. Pull up your sweater, Andy thought, as hard as he could, but his mom didn’t hear.

  “I work five, sometimes six days a week at the salon. I’m on my feet for sometimes ten hours a day.” Andy’s grandfather gave a noisy sniff. His mother flinched but kept talking, her eyes on her lap and her hands pressed together, like she’d rehearsed the speech and was going to say it straight through to the end, no matter what. “I hate to ask. You know I do. I just need a little help right now. My car won’t pass inspection, and Andy’s tuition is due . . .”

  His grandfather, who’d been sitting so still, finally spoke. “Why don’t you ask Andrew’s father’s family for help?”

  Lori’s hands twisted against each other. “Dad, you know that’s not going to happen.”

  “I can’t say that surprises me,” said her father. “No, I can’t say that at all.”

  Lori cut her eyes toward Andy. “Honey, go into the bedroom,” she said, in the tone he knew never to argue with. He walked down the hallway, hearing her say, “Either tell me yes or tell me no. But don’t insult me.”

  “If you’re asking for my money, don’t tell me how to behave,” her father said. Andy stopped before he reached the bedroom door, knowing that no one was thinking about him anymore. As far as the three of them were concerned, he might not even be there at all.

  “Your mother and I wanted better than this for you,” his grandfather was saying. “We tried to raise you right. We thought you’d meet a boy, a nice boy, and marry him, and live somewhere decent, maybe near us, in a house, with a yard, good schools for your kids. Now look at you.” His voice was full of disgust. “Look at this.” Andy could imagine him sweeping his arm across his heavy body, indicating the shabby apartment, the frayed carpet and peeling walls, the folding table with its metal legs visible beneath the tablecloth. “We did our best. Scrimped and saved to send you to Hallahan, and what do you do? Spread your legs for the first black boy who smiled at you.”

  Andy heard his grandmother then, her voice high and shaky and shocked. “Lonnie, that’s enough.”

  Grandpa ignored her. Then he must have turned back to Lori. “If you had any sense you’d let Andy come live with us.”

  “I am never giving up my son,” Lori said, her voice icy. Andy’s face was burning, his stomach twisting in a way that made him think he was going to throw up, and he was rocking back and forth, he was glad, glad that his mother wouldn’t give him away like a pet she didn’t want anymore, except he was also thinking about his grandparents’ house in Haddonfield, the basketball hoop over the garage door and how there was a room there, just for him, with a bed with a blue-and-green-plaid bedspread, and a guest bathroom that only he used because he was the only guest. It would be nice—and then he shut that thought down, clamped it off like stepping on a hose to stop the flow of water. How could he even think that way?

  His grandmother came down the hall, hurrying him into the bedroom, pressing his face into her middle. Her sweater smelled of roast turkey and Tide. “You made your bed,” his grandfather was yelling, “see how you like lying in it,” and his mother was saying, “Get out of my house and don’t ever come back,” and “You’re dead to me, both of you, dead to me,” and—the worst thing—“You can forget about ever seeing Andy again.” His grandmother had stood there, squeezing Andy tight, squashing him against her, saying “Oh, sweetheart” over and over. And he must have been scared because he’d been holding on to her, his arms around her waist, until his grandfather came into the room.

  “Get your coat, Bernice. We’re going.”

  “Oh, no, Lonnie. Not like this.”

  “Get your coat,” he repeated, and Grandma let Andy go with one last squeeze. His grandfather had knelt down with a grunt. Andy heard his knees pop. His face was red and his eyes were watery as he put his arms on Andy’s shoulders. “Andrew,” he began. Then Lori had been in the room, throwing the door open so hard that it slammed into the wall with a sound like a gunshot.

  “Get away from him,” she’d said. “You don’t get to speak to my son ever again.”

  When they were gone, his mother had stood with her hands braced against the front door, red nails vivid against
the white paint, as if they might come back and try to push their way back through. Finally, she’d turned to Andy and in that terrible, low voice had said, If they call, hang up the phone. If they ever come, you shut the door in their faces. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have any grandparents. We don’t need them. We have each other. That’s enough.

  But now Lori was gone and they were here. Andy could see the wrapped and ribboned boxes in their hands.

  “Honey, please,” his grandma said. The heavy gold earrings that she wore had stretched out her earlobes, and her red lipstick was smeared on her front teeth. He remembered how she always smelled good, and her soft sweaters, and cookies with sprinkles, and how he’d felt when she’d said, “Of course he’s mine.”

  Andy’s throat felt thick and his eyes were burning. “I can’t,” he said again.

  His grandfather stepped forward until his chest was almost brushing the door, and Andy could smell him, Old Spice and cigars. He was a heavy man with iron-gray hair combed straight back from his deeply grooved forehead. He’d been a pipe fitter and worked in the Navy Yard, but now he was retired.

  “Andrew,” he said, in his deep voice. “We know we’re not welcome here. But please, son. Whatever’s going on between the two of us and your mother isn’t your fault. You haven’t done anything wrong. We just want to give you some Christmas presents. We love you very much.”