"He bought you the car?" she asked excitedly.
"Before I continue, I should probably warn you that none of my life stories have a happy ending."
She slumped back. "In that case—" Again she wrapped her lips around the bottle and gulped the beer. "O.K. I'm fortified. Continue."
"I remember pulling off the shiny ribbon. My heart was racing. But I kept reminding myself that there was no way the car was under the paper. I knew he would never buy it for me. The paper ripped free. I jumped up and down, yelling and cheering, something I was never allowed to do in the house. Or anywhere near my dad, for that matter."
Shay sat forward in anticipation. "It was the car?" Then her mouth turned down in a sweet frown. "Oh my gosh, was the car box filled with underwear?"
I laughed. "Actually, I'm surprised it wasn't. It wouldn't have been nearly as cruel as what happened next."
She held up her hand for me to stop as she finished the beer. "All right. Go ahead."
"After I finished jumping around and cheering, I sat down in front of the box, ready to open it and live out my remote control race car dreams. Dad pulled his keys out of his pocket. I thought he was going to use them to cut the tape from the box. He told me to pick up the box and go out to the car. I was still in shock that he had bought me the gift, but something about the way he was acting began to worry me. I could feel the rush of excitement flowing out of me. I'd stupidly let myself believe that he had done something fatherly, something human, something that made me smile. We climbed in the car. I held that stupid box on my lap as if I was afraid it would jump out of my arms and out the window. My mind circled the possibility that he was driving me to the park so I could really race the thing. But that notion was quickly squashed when he turned the car into the Goodwill parking lot. I still remember what he said when he pulled up to the donation center. He said 'Nash, there are many kids who don't get any toys on their birthday'. And I thought—yeah, I'm one of those kids. He watched and waited while I climbed out of the car. I was holding back tears, knowing that they would only get me in trouble. I walked up to the donation center and handed over my prized possession, my dream toy. I never even got to see the thing out of its box."
Shay's brown eyes looked slightly glassy as she looked at me. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, but your dad is seriously twisted. I'm glad you never had a pet."
"Yep, me too." I sucked down the rest of my beer. "That's why you can't watch a commercial with a dog shivering in the snow. You grew up with love and happiness and you learned about love and empathy."
"Hmm," she said quietly. She scooted into the corner of the couch and hugged the pillow to herself. Her gaze dropped, and she fidgeted with the tassels on the pillow. "One night, when I was twelve, I was sitting at our wobbly kitchen table doing my homework. My mom cooked up macaroni and cheese from a box while I finished my algebra. We ate it a lot. We would spice it up with a dash of hot sauce and pretend it was a gourmet meal. That night I knew my mom was in one of her dark moods. I know now that she struggled with depression, but as a kid, her dark moods meant that she didn't like to talk or laugh or get out of bed. This time the mood had stretched on for two weeks, a long time in my twelve-year-old world."
She stopped tugging on the tassels and just gripped the pillow against her. "I was so relieved when I finished the last algebra problem. I hated math. My mom walked into the kitchen. It was late fall, and she had pulled on her sweatshirt because the apartment heater had never worked right. She handed me my sweatshirt too. I didn't think anything of it until she told me to put on my shoes. We're going down to the beach, she said so quietly I was sure I'd misheard her. We'd only ever gone to the beach in summer and even that was rare." Shay's attention was temporarily pulled to the window. A moon hung low over the water, casting a yellow stripe across the ocean.
"She was silent on the entire bus ride," she continued, pillow still in her arms. "She held my hand, but she didn't say a word. I knew better than to ask her why we were going to the beach because I knew in her dark mood she wouldn't have enough energy to answer my question. So I just sat there quietly watching the other tired looking people on the bus, most on their way home from work. I figured my mom wanted to go to the beach in hopes that it would cheer her up and kick her out of her dark mood."
She pulled the pillow away from her and looked at it. "I'm destroying this. Poor thing."
"No, it's fine. Hug it all you want. The decorator put a bunch of pillows around the house, and I really don't like them."