Attach ments(66)

It didn’t really matter. Eve was spending Christmas with Jake’s family in Colorado, and Lincoln’s mother wasn’t big on Christmas “or any of the Judeo-Christian holidays.”

Lincoln worked Christmas Eve, then went out for dinner with a bunch of the copy editors. There was a casino across the river with a twenty-four-hour buffet. “With crab legs tonight,” Chuck said, “on account of Christ’s birth.” Miniature Emilie came along. Lincoln could tell she was watching him, but he tried not to encourage her. He didn’t want to betray Beth. They wouldn’t let you ride Splash Mountain, he thought.

He spent Christmas Day with his mom, eating fresh gingerbread cookies and watching Jimmy Durante movies on public television.

WHEN HE CAME downstairs the next morning, his mother was on the telephone, talking about butter.

“Pfft,” she said, “it’s real food. Real food isn’t bad for you. It’s everything else that’s killing us.

The dyes. The pesticides. The preservatives. Margarine.” His mother had a special disdain for margarine. Finding out that a family kept margarine in the butter dish was like finding out their pets weren’t house-trained. If margarine was such a good idea, she said, why didn’t God give it to us? Why didn’t He promise the Israelites to lead them into the land of margarine and honey? The Japanese don’t eat margarine, she said. The Scandinavians don’t eat margarine. “My parents were healthy as horses,” she told whoever was on the phone, “and they drank cream right off the top of the bucket.”

Lincoln grabbed the last gingerbread cookie, and went into the living room. Eve had given their mom a DVD player for Christmas, and he’d promised to hook it up. He thought he had it working— they didn’t have any DVDs to test it—when his mom walked into the living room.

“Well,” she said, slowly sitting down on the couch.

“What’s up?” he asked. He could tell she wanted him to.

“Well … ,” she said, “I just got off the phone with a woman named Doris.”

Lincoln quickly looked up from the floor. His mother was already looking down at him like she’d just confronted him with damning criminal evidence. Like it was clear he’d done it with the candlestick in the conservatory, and she had the candlestick to prove it.

“She acted as if I should recognize her name,” his mother said. “She couldn’t stop thanking me.”

Lincoln felt his face fall. Why would Doris call him at home? “I can explain,” he said.

“Doris already did,” his mother said. He couldn’t tell whether she was angry. “She said you share your dinner with her almost every night.”

“Well,” he said carefully, “that’s true.”

“I know that it’s true. The woman knows everything that’s come out of my kitchen for the past month. She wants the recipe for your grandmother’s salmon patties.”

“I’m sorry,” Lincoln said. “I couldn’t help myself. You should see what she brings for dinner— turkey loaf on Wonder bread every single night—and you always send me with such a feast. I felt guilty eating in front of her.”

“I don’t mind that you share,” his mother said. “I just don’t know why you wouldn’t tell me that you were doing it, that you were giving my food to …a stranger …”

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “I wondered how you were eating so much and still losing weight. I thought you might be taking steroids.”

“I’m not taking steroids, Mom.” That made him laugh.

And that made her laugh.

“So that’s all it is?” she asked. There was something in her voice still. Worry.

“What do you mean?”

“You just feel sorry for her?”

“Well,” Lincoln said. He could hardly tell his mom that he ate dinner with Doris to up his chances of running into a girl he’d never met. “I guess we’re friends. Doris is actually pretty funny. Not always intentionally …”

His mother took a deep breath, like she was steadying herself. Lincoln’s voice trailed off.

“Oh, Mom, no. It’s not like that. It could not be more not like that. Mom. God.”

She put her hand on her forehead and exhaled.

“Why are you always bracing for me to tell you something weird?” he asked.

“What am I supposed to think when I hear that you eat dinner with the same woman every night?

And it wouldn’t be that weird, you know, a number of my friends enjoy the company of younger men.”

“Mom. ”