Peter walked to the front door and opened it to see Lydia Ellsonn smiling up at him. She greeted him and hugged him on her way inside.
“Peter Laurent,” she began. “Are you going to introduce me to this young gentleman?”
Joshua stood stiffly in the middle of the living room in his blue camp shorts and yellow t-shirt, his fists around the toy trucks, his glance moving from one adult to the other.
“This is Joshua-Nathan Ryder. Joshua, this is my mother -”
“Lydia,” she interrupted, interjecting her preferred address.
“You are early,” Peter noted. “We haven’t finished cleaning up yet.”
“It looks fine,” she assured him, walking slowly toward Joshua and casually holding out her hand. The boy glanced at Peter before clasping it and returning Lydia’s broad smile with a shy one of his own.
Later in the quiet, with Joshua upstairs in bed, Peter brought his mother iced tea and sat on the sofa perpendicular from hers in the living room. He rotated the ice in his own glass as she settled herself and commented cheerily on various aspects of his house that she hadn’t noticed since her last visit nearly a year before. She refrained from observing out loud, though, how there once were photographs scattered among the books on the shelves and now there were none. Not one of anybody. She found that interesting and heartbreaking and looked away to turn her attention to her eldest son.
“He’s a very nice boy, Peter,” she said at last. “Your father told me about their visit in the spring and I have wanted to meet him. I don’t know why it took me so long.”
“Maybe you were waiting for an invitation,” Peter suggested.
“Maybe I was,” she agreed. “So, you say Dana is camping in Oregon somewhere?”
Peter sighed, suddenly depressed and remorseful at the mention of her. “Yes, she is backpacking with her brother. She said she would call me when she has a chance, but she hasn’t called yet.”
“Are you worried about her?” she asked.
“Oh, no, she’ll be fine.”
“Then about something else? You seem worried.”
He nodded, not certain whether to reveal the true extent of his anxiety. He pondered it, drinking his iced tea, wishing he had the nerve to light a cigarette. But he remained silent.
“I guess you don’t feel like talking about whatever it is right now,” she concluded gently.
He met her eyes, relieved. “No, I guess not.”
“Well, then, maybe you could tell me a bit more about Joshua. I want to know him better so that he will feel comfortable with me.”
“Are you sure you want to take care of him, Mom?” Peter questioned her again.
“Of course,” she proclaimed. “I love little boys.”
As soon as she said the words, a look of dismay leveled her features.
Peter stared at her, trying to quell the grief and guilt that rose in him. “You know what I mean,” she stated quietly, almost apologetically.
He nodded, his jaw tight, willing himself to dismiss his emotions and speak instead of the boy in his house. He had to think of Joshua now. Joshua only.
A.M. Shaw 