The little boy was very pleased with his bicycling prowess. He begged and begged his mom to come outside so he could show her his skills on his brand new purple two-wheeled rocketship that Bill had sent money for a couple of weeks ago. Mom sighed as she put down the dish cloth but patiently followed Jonny out the front door. "Watch me Mom! Watch me!" He jumped back on his bike that he had propped up by the fence and pedalled furiously out of sight around the corner of the quiet residential street.
Mom waited placidly, noting that Mary's bedroom curtains opposite were still closed, and it was past 10am. She also noticed an unusual car parked in front of Mary's, not the husband’s who usually drove off to work at 8 o’clock on the button.
Further thoughts of Mary and her regular morning visitors were driven away as Jonny reappeared around the other corner. As he sped past the front of the house, he gleefully shouted, "Look Mom! Look how fast I’m going!" And he was moving fast, faster maybe than was safe. But he seemed quite adept as he angled left and rounded the corner and cycled out of sight.
Mom glanced at the other houses to each side of Mary's. All looked normal and quiet, drapes neatly drawn back and cars gone from the short driveways. I'll need a better job soon, Mom thought. Two hours three times a week at the library was barely enough to buy peanut butter and jelly for Jonny's lunchbox. Couldn't assume Bill would keep sending money. Maybe they'd need to move to a cheaper area downtown.
Jonny's joyful exclamations brought her out of her reverie. "Look Mom, no feet!" And his feet were off the pedals as his momentum carried him swiftly around the corner again. Mom looked at her nails, which could do with a little attention. A couple were broken, and all badly needed a fresh coat of polish. Her eyes flicked back to Mary's bedroom and she wondered what might be happening behind the curtains. Her thoughts made her flush a tinge darker and she unconsciously bit down gently on her lower lip, glazed eyes fixed on the upstairs window opposite.
Suddenly, Jonny was back. He was even more elated. "Look Mom, no hands!" She was slightly more concerned as she followed Jonny's motion, his arms stretched out wide as he sped past the house, still pedalling without a care. She grimaced as he wobbled when he reached the corner, but her face relaxed a little as he grabbed at the handlebars just in time and turned left successfully.
Mary's curtains seemed to twitch, she was sure of it. But no amount of looking would open them. Mom's thoughts returned to Bill, who had left last year to find himself. And she hadn't had any physical contact since, not with anyone. Mom sighed, absently running her hands through her unbrushed dark hair. I must look a state she thought.
"Look Mom!" Jonny's shout brought her back to reality with a bang. "No hands and no feet!" Mom's liquid brown eyes followed his movement anxiously as Jonny made an X shape with his outstretched arms and legs. She gasped as the bicycle careered crazily towards the middle of the road and then lurched back again towards the sidewalk, but Jonny managed to regain control and she could hear his "wheeeee..!" as he disappeared around the corner in a blur.
Mom smiled for a moment, a shade nervously, then her musings turned to Jonny's future without a dad. I'll do my best, she thought. I don't know much about baseball and soccer, but I can learn and then I'll play with him. What else can I do? Her eyes alighted on the interesting old car parked opposite. Expensive, she thought. Wonder what he does.
When Jonny didn't reappear as quickly as before, Mom got worried. She strode to the sidewalk and looked nervously up and down the roadway. Then she walked to the right, towards the corner where Jonny was expected to come around any minute. She hadn't gone ten feet when Jonny turned up, wheeling his bike on the sidewalk. Her relief turned quickly to alarm as she saw the red streaming down Jonny's chin, and she gave out an anguished cry when she also saw the rip on his trouser leg and a darkening gash over his knee.
"Oh Jonny what happened?" Mom knelt down in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders as her eyes darted all over his face to see what was bleeding. He wasn't crying, please god he wasn't badly cut. And then Jonny grinned, almost in triumph it seemed. His gums were all red and for a moment it was hard to see any white. Her heart leapt like a tiger as her mind raced. Doctor, ambulance, hospital, dentist, Bill's anger... catastrophe piled on catastrophe.
The boy was a picture of dignity and defiance, a little man determined not to admit defeat. "Look Mom," he blurted. "No teeth." For a moment, the world stopped as Mom stared into his face for an eternity of mere seconds. Then she saw the gaps where his two front teeth had been a month earlier. Then she pushed a finger into his mouth and exhaled with loud relief as she felt all the other teeth that should be there. And the sense of what Jonny had just said hit her like a brick, and she burst into a fit of laughter that had everything mixed in, jangling nerves, release, heartache, amusement and a mother's fierce pride.
Jonny grinned and grinned. He wasn’t in big trouble. Mom wasn’t yelling at him, she was laughing. He let her wipe his mouth and face with a tissue, he even let her wet the tissue with her tongue to clean off a dried bit of blood from the end of his nose. He calmly accepted Mom’s hand as she stood up and led him back to the house, her other hand hauling his bike for him before dropping it down on the small patch of rough grass near the front door.
“We better get Mister Bob to have a look at your mouth anyway, after I clean up your knee,” she said. “It sure is a good thing your grown-up teeth haven’t come down yet, or you’d look like this for life.” Mom peered down at her son, seeing that a bath was in order to get the dirt out of his ears and hair as well as his knee. As she closed the front door, her head was turned so she didn’t spot her neighbour Mary come down her driveway alongside a very well dressed woman, climb into the beautiful old car beside her and drive off together.
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