With the music, the conversations, the tinkle of
champagne glasses, and the peals of laughter trailing behind us, we slipped out of the ballroom and down the corridor to a sitting room in the rear. Troy pushed opened the double doors. The floor of the room was inundated with wedding gifts, some piled three or four
feet high.
"Look at all of it!" he exclaimed. "Tony said we
can help open everything up later."
I could only nod in awe. There was so much.
Troy marched through the corridors of gifts, touching
some, gently tapping on others and then placing his
face against the sides of the boxes to listen and get a
clue about the contents of each. I laughed and shook
my head.
"Are you happy, Troy? Happy now that your
brother has a wife and my mother will be living here
with him?" He stopped his inspection of the wedding
gifts and glanced at me with dark eyes and a somber
face. "Troy? You're not happy?"
He was still silent.
"But why not?"
"Your mommy doesn't like me," he said,
looking as though he would cry.
"What? Why do you say that, Troy?" He
shrugged. "Tell me, please."
"She looks at me with growls in her eyes," he
said quickly. "Growls? What's growls?"
He growled like a dog.
"Oh." I started to laugh, but saw he was very
serious.
"Oh, I'm sure she doesn't mean that, Troy. It's
just that . . just that she's never had a little boy before.
She's only had me and she's not used to little boys.