Page 77 of This Could Be Us

He lifts the communication device hanging around his neck and scrolls for a few seconds before finding what he’s looking for. When he turns it toward me, he displays a photo of my mother.

“Yeah!” Adam says from his side of the table. “Let’s FaceTime MawMaw!”

“Maybe after dinner.” I scoop string beans onto their plates.

“Or we could eat while we FaceTime,” Adam wheedles, rocking on the yoga ball he brings to the dinner table sometimes. He has one at school too, for his desks there. When he’s forced to balance on the ball, it gives his extra energy somewhere to go, engages his core, and helps him focus.

Aaron again turns around the device showing my mother’s face, his insistent bid to eat and talk. He prefers FaceTime. Sometimes when he’s talking to someone on the phone, he just walks away. Something about the phone up against his ear starts to bother him. That’s how I feel half the time when I’m on the phone too. Like just dropping it as soon as I’m bored and walking away without even saying goodbye. The world would be a simpler, albeit ruder, place if we all lacked the ability to dissemble that way.

“She may not even be available,” I warn them.

But she is, so we find ourselves all sitting on one side of the kitchen table with my phone propped up so we can chat with MawMaw.

“What is that you’re eating?” she asks, narrowing her eyes from the screen. “Chicken?”

“Yeah,” I confirm, taking a bite. “Ms. Coleman made chicken, brown rice, and string beans. The boys have mac and cheese, but will eat some string beans.”

I aim my fork at the untouched green beans on their plates.

“Thank God for that woman helping around the house,” Mama says. “And cooking, but I want to make you some of my stew. I could ship it.”

“Ship it?” I pause and send a skeptical look to the screen. “How about you ship yourself on a flight? Maryland isn’t that far from Atlanta.”

“If Maryland isn’t that far from Atlanta,” Mama says, “and flights go both ways, shipyourself. Why haven’t you brought my grandsons to see me?”

“Lots going on. We’ll see you for Christmas.”

“What’s Tremaine doing for the holidays?”

“The boys will spend Christmas Eve with her, and then she and Kent are going to his parents’ for Christmas Day.”

“How her folks doing?” Mama asks, the tiniest bit of reserve entering her voice.

“They’re good. The boys will see them maybe on winter break.”

Tremaine’s parents weren’t as understanding as mine about autism. They kept thinking we could just discipline the boys out of meltdowns. That the boys weren’t sleeping because kids don’t like to sleep and if we imposed restrictions, they would “cave” and sleep more at night. When we were trying elimination diets to identify any allergies the boys might have, they would ignore our instructions and feed Aaron and Adam whatever was in the house. It was alwayssomethingwith them, and I refused to subject my boys to their ignorance and stubborn insistence that they knew best when they didn’t know jack shit aboutwhat we were dealing with. They’ve gotten better, but I’m still wary about leaving the boys alone with them for long.

“Goodbye,” Aaron says, standing. He takes his dish to the sink, rinses it off, and loads it into the dishwasher.

Mama doesn’t miss a beat but just waves. “Bye, baby. You be a good boy for your daddy.”

Aaron doesn’t respond but climbs the stairs.

“Bye, MawMaw.” Adam stands and clears his plate, too, loading it into the dishwasher and following Aaron.

“I really know how to clear a room, huh?” Mama laughs.

“They love you, but the pull of their video games got to be too strong,” I joke, scraping the last of my rice and green beans up, grinning while I chew. “Where’s Dad?”

“On my nerves. Ever since that man retired, he’s been like a caged animal, prowling around here all the time looking for stuff to fix or hang or trim. It’s downright unsettling.”

At seventy, my father is nearly ten years older than my mother. She was twenty and he was twenty-nine when they had me. She’ll retire soon from her job as a nurse, but for now she’s still going strong at the hospital.

“Hey, at least you come home to a clean house and a home-cooked meal every night now that Dad’s home, right?” I deadpan, knowing damn well he’s asking her what’s for dinner as soon as she walks through the door.

“Boy, you know your daddy better than that.” She rolls her eyes and laughs. “But I will say he found all these easy Crock-Pot recipes online. He even made one last week. It was pretty good. I was shocked.”

“My father, Belmont Cross, cooked a meal?”