Wish by Joseph Monninger Read Free Book Online Page B

back at whoever looks at him. I don’t even question it any longer. It just is. When I’ve read about saints in catechism classes, I’ve always thought they were probably people like Tommy. Not supernatural, not more godly than anyone else, but simple, quiet people whose humility was the most exceptional thing about them. Tommy never holds himself above others and never looks down on anyone. He meets people square. He believes in them, because he knows even in the dullest of us, or the most lame, a person resides there.
    Mom’s cell phone rang as I slid the key card into the hotel room door.
    “Well, hi,” she said when she fished her phone out of her purse, her voice turning instantly girlish, her eyes openingwide and glancing at me as if she had done something miraculous in receiving a phone call from a guy. “Jerrod, how nice to hear from you!”
    Tommy groaned softly and shook his head. I slid the card out and handed it to her. She stayed in the hall. Tommy and I went inside. Even through the wall we heard her turn into Mom Barbie, her voice filled with curlicues.
    “Hello, Jerrod,” Tommy imitated her, his voice going up in a funny falsetto. “How do you do?”
    “Good grief,” I said. “You’re almost as ridiculous as she is.”
    Tommy fell on the bed laughing. He picked up the TV remote and shot the set alive. He turned up the volume. He seemed tired and sleepy.
    I told Tommy to change his clothes and then went to the bathroom and looked at my face. The wind had burned me as it had Mr. Cotter. I turned back and forth, trying to see how red I was. I had raccoon eyes from where my sunglasses had covered me. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and washed my hands, then I studied my face a little. I looked like certain kinds of terrier dogs, sharp and pointed, and way too serious. Before I finished, Mom knocked on the bathroom door and pushed through. She smiled. I knew what was coming.
    “I’d like to meet Jerrod for a drink,” she said. “That is, if you don’t mind sitting with Tommy.”
    “And what if I do mind?” I asked, squeezing some moisturizer onto my hand. I rubbed it around my eyes and up on my forehead. It felt good on my skin.
    “Do you really care or are you just giving me a hard time?” Mom asked, coming to stand beside me and inspecting herself in the mirror. She grabbed the moisturizer and smeared her face with it, too.
    “Gee, I don’t know, Mom, we’re on a family trip and you want to go out on a date.”
    “For a drink, Bee,” she said. “He’s going to be nearby this evening and he just wants to meet for a drink. Sorry for trying to have a life.”
    “This is Tommy’s trip,” I said. “Four measly days.”
    “And we took him out and we saw a shark,” Mom said, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “And last night we stayed together. Tonight I’d like to go out and meet a gentleman who said he wanted to buy me a drink. Is that a crime? I’ll leave you money. You can go and get a pizza or whatever you like.”
    “Whatever,” I said. “Knock yourself out, Mom.”
    “It’s easy to be critical,” Mom said, pushing her hand hard against her cheek to keep the flesh going up, not down, “but you try raising two children on your own.”
    “And that means you need to go out on a date?”
    “It means,” she said, emphasizing the
means
, “that on occasion I want adult company, yes.”
    “Adult male.”
    “It would be nice to have a man in my life, Bee. Sorry if that disappoints you.”
    “It’s so predictable.”
    She looked at me.
    “I won’t be late,” she said.
    “Of course you won’t.”
    “I’ll always be your mother,” she said, her voice crowding me somehow. “I’m afraid you’re doomed.”
    “Lucky me. What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Well, that none of us is perfect.” She rubbed the last of the moisturizer away. “And that we’re locked together, like it or not.”
    “That’s got nothing to do with you going out on a date.”
    She