Who Do You Love (6 page)

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 i
s
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.”

Andy felt like something was ripping at his insides. “I can't,” he repeated, his voice cracking. He shut the door and locked it, and walked, as fast as he could, all the way through the apartment until he was in his mother's bedroom, with the bedroom door shut behind him. He rested his burning forehead against the wall, ignoring the knocking, and made himself take deep slow breaths and count to one hundred before he opened his eyes.

His grandparents were gone, but they'd left the presents on the steps, wrapped in red paper that showed reindeers pulling a ho-ho-hoing Santa's sleigh through the starry sky. Andy looked left, then right, before scooping them up and bringing them inside. He locked himself in the bathroom, even though Lori wasn't due home for an hour, and tore through the paper. There was a bottle of perfume for his mom, and a hardcover
Guinness Book o
f
World Records
that he'd asked for on his list to Santa, and a package of new socks for him. The biggest box was from Strawbridge's. In it was a winter coat, a blue-and-red one, exactly what Andy would have picked out himself.

He looked at it for a long time. Maybe if he left it in his locker at school, and wore it only at recess? Or if he told Lori that one of the neighbors, maybe Mrs. Cleary, had given it to him because it didn't fit Dylan? Or that it was the gift coat from Ryan Peterman?

Except his mother would thank Mrs. Cleary, who wouldn't know what she was talking about, and the Petermans would probably have Ryan bring the coat over and make a big show of his generosity, his Christian charity. Andy could tell the truth, could stand in front of his mom and say, “My grandparents gave it to me and I don't want to give it back.” Except then her face would get still and pale and she'd turn away, propping her hands against the back of a chair like she couldn't even stand up on her own. Maybe she'd even start crying again, and Andy didn't think that he could take it.
We're a team,
she always said.
It's us against the world.

His mom kept the garbage bags underneath the sink. Andy pulled one out and put everything inside, the coat and the book, the socks and the perfume, the boxes and the wrapping paper and the ribbons. He inspected the bathroom to make sure he hadn't left a scrap of tape or wrapping paper behind, and then ran out the door. We love you very much, he heard his grand­father saying. “No, you don't,” he muttered. “No, you don't.”

Outside, more snow was swirling down, and an icy wind was scouring the streets, stirring up grit and trash. Andy pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and started walking fast, head down, with the bag in his arms. Mr. Sills's rattling pale-blue pickup truck pulled to the curb, and Mr. Sills climbed out, dressed in khakis and a plaid shirt, with his big belly pushing at his belt, his white curls under a gray knitted cap. He, too, had a wrapped box in his hands.

“Merry Christmas!” he called. Andy ignored him, tucking his chin down into his chest and hurrying past before Mr. Sills could give him the present or start asking him questions. There was a Dumpster behind the Spanish restaurant on Kensington Avenue. He heaved the lid open, threw the bag deep inside, and let the lid fall down, with an echoing clang that he could feel in his teeth.

Next to the Dumpster was restaurant trash—newspaper, plastic bags, coffee grinds and eggshells, a rotted half of a head of lettuce, and a chunk of a broken brick about the size of a baseball. Andy picked up the brick. The roughness felt good against his skin. He stepped onto the street and then, before he could think about it, before he even knew what he was going to do, he lifted his arm and threw the piece of brick, as hard as he could, through the windshield of a car that was parked at the meter in front of the restaurant.

The glass rained down in jagged shards. A lady on the sidewalk screamed, and the man beside her pointed, yelling, “Hey, kid!” Andy ran, and at first the man who'd yelled was chasing him, except he was old and slow and Andy left him behind, his long legs eating up the pavement, weaving down one-way streets and cobbled alleys too small for a car, not feeling the cold, not thinking about the jacket or his grandparents or his mom, thinking of nothing, feeling nothing, hearing nothing, not even the shriek of sirens, until a policeman's hand grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt, yanking Andy backward. The cop was soft and jiggly underneath his blue uniform shirt, and his belt, with a walkie-talkie on one side and a gun on the other, dragged down his pants. “Merry Christmas, asshole,” he said.

Andy twisted violently. “Fuck you, fatso,” he said. Then the cop grabbed his hood again and slammed Andy into the brick wall of the row house beside him. The air went rushing out of
Andy's
lungs as the cop pulled his arms back and up behind him, twisting them hard, and the pain pushed everything out of his mind, and he barely felt the snow in his hair, on his cheeks, melting and mixing with his tears.