The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten

Author:Teresa Toten [Toten, Teresa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67835-3
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2013-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“It doesn’t last, honey,” his mom said. “I hate to burst your bubble, but your body gets used to the caffeine and the buzz goes bye-bye.” Carmella stood on her tiptoes and kissed Adam’s head. “Hey, cut that out! I can’t reach the top anymore.” She ruffled his hair. “Come here, let your old lady show you how to make a cup of filtered coffee. Use lots of milk and sugar or you won’t get it down.” She plugged in the kettle. “You can practise drinking it non-stop over the holidays so you’ll never get caught short with your friends again.”

“But at the coffee shop—”

“Yeah, I know you said you got down an Americano—straight.” Carmella smiled big, but only with her mouth, not her eyes. “I suspect that had more to do with the object of your affection being there than any real ability to drink that stuff.”

She knew. Somehow, his mom suspected that there was a girl. It was all the showering—he’d bet on it. He should have told her. When had he stopped telling her things? He should tell her now. They could have a “moment.”

The moment passed.

“Now, do you need any help with your Christmas gifts?”

“I got it under control, Mom.”

And he did, at least the present part. Despite his Ativan increase, the escalation of the threshold issues and even an ever-so-slight increase in interior counting, Adam felt certain this would be the best Christmas ever. Maybe other “divorced” kids wrapped themselves in longing for Christmases when they were little and had an “intact” family. But Adam had had enough sessions with Chuck to be clear-eyed about how those family holidays actually went down. Year after year, Christmas was poisoned by arguments and long dirt-dry spells of his parents not talking to each other unless it was through him. There were entire holidays when the three of them were held hostage in the same house, wanting to be anywhere else. His mom would say things like, “Adam, tell your father that if he wants to have dinner waiting on Christmas Eve, he has to give me a clue as to when he might deign to come home.” And his dad would say, “Adam, you can tell your mother that my work doesn’t revolve around a punch-clock. I come home when I’m done, get it?”

He didn’t. Adam never “got it.” To this day, despite all his sessions, he didn’t know what, if any of it, was his fault. Should he have “told,” gotten more traction in the middle? Should he have warned her about the “collecting”? If he knew, why didn’t she? Brenda’s house was all gleaming surfaces, right angles, glass, steel and marble—a cup on a coaster looked wildly out of place—and his father loved that. Even as a little boy, Adam knew that his dad did not like counters cluttered with six kinds of cow-shaped butter dishes. Why didn’t his mom?

He should have warned her. Did he even try?

Chuck used to say that wasn’t his job, that he was just a child.

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