“All her chicken nuggets and seconds on applesauce. She went down about eight thirty.”
“Good, good. You want anything?”
“I wouldn’t mind a little ice cream,” his mother said.
In fact, ice cream was the last thing Lydia Guidice needed. She hadn’t weighed herself since she slipped past the three-hundred-pound mark. But the ugly truth was, his mother was a lot easier to take when she was stuffing her face.
“Where were you tonight?” she asked, pushing herself up to sitting.
“Work,” he said.
“You might have called.”
“We’ve been over this, Mom. If I don’t call, it means I’m working late. I don’t understand what’s so complicated about that.”
“I just worry, that’s all. Would it really kill you to pick up the phone?” she asked.
Guidice took a long hit of his beer. It was the same dance, every goddamn time.
“You know,” he said, “if you want, I can just as easily take Emma Lee and find a smaller place—”
“No, no,” his mother said.
“Take my benefit checks with me, too. I think they’re hiring over at the Safeway right now. You want me to pick you up an application tomorrow?”
“Don’t start,” she said, and put out a hand for her dessert. Guidice stopped short, holding the quart of Breyers mint chip just out of her reach.
“Who’s in charge, Mom?” he said.
“Oh, for pity’s sake.”
“Say it.”
Lydia grunted testily and shifted her eyes up to meet his gaze. “You’re in charge, Ronald. Always have been,” she said. “Satisfied?”
Guidice handed her the ice cream and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.
“Then let’s stop having this conversation, Mom, what do you say?”
The fact of the matter was, Lydia Guidice had never finished the tenth grade, never married Ron’s father, and never held down a real job in her life. Now, at age sixty-two, three hundred and some pounds, and no Social Security coming in, she was about as marketable as a used condom, and they both knew it.
Guidice didn’t enjoy making his mother squirm like this. That’s why he only did it as often as necessary.
“I’m going to give Emma Lee a kiss, and then I’ll be working in my room,” he told her.
“Okeydoke.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too, son,” Lydia answered as she tucked into her ice cream. “Don’t stay up too late.”
CHAPTER
18
GUIDICE TIPTOED INTO EMMA LEE’S ROOM AND STOOD OVER HER BED. SHE WAS all curled up like a little hedgehog in one corner under the covers, sleeping peacefully.
There was nothing more precious than this. Nothing.