“Do you think you can find out? I’ve been with him for two days and I can’t remember what he said or even what he was hauling. I’m not sure if he ever said, just told me Boston.” Which, if my recent experience of Erie is any indicator, could mean anywhere in the vicinity.

“I can’t make any promises. But I’ll do my best. Just get on the bus. I’ll call you later.”

Unlike my stepmother, Candy leaves me with a “Good-bye” and a softly spoken “God bless.”

Candy Kane is maybe ten years older than I am, but that doesn’t stop her from treating me like she does all the women who work for her—as her child. Not like a child, but with the same care and concern that a good parent shows a daughter. I sound mushy, and I don’t mean to. It’s just that her quick call to arms has me emotional. Maybe it’s just that her instinctive mothering skills have always left me jealous. Lacking a good example, turned out not to be such a good one myself. In my experience, mothers either died or preferred other children. Having grown up pitted against two people who saw me as an inconvenience, I swore I’d be a better mother to my son. I wanted to lavish attention on him, but, young, single, and poor, I’m not sure I lavished the right kind. Late at night while he slept, I would crawl into his bed and press my weary body around his, sorry that when he was awake, I was more stressed than loving, more impatient than playful—the daily fear of not being able to keep him in sneakers and cereal making me short-tempered and unable to take pleasure in him. I wanted to make him feel as though he was the most important thing in my life, but that was harder than it sounds.

* * *

Tony sits very still on the daybed that I convert from my bed back into the couch in the living room of the efficiency apartment. He clutches his special pillow, the one that ensures that wherever he sleeps, he has his own pillow with its singular Donald Duck motif. A sitter is coming in a minute, but she’s late and I’m beginning to get nervous that then I’ll be late. Late again, and I might not get the extra shifts at the restaurant where I’ve waitressed for the past six months.

Tony has already spent the entire week in day care, and he is so stoic about being left again so that I can work a Saturday shift. He never gives me fits about leaving; he understands, even at four years old, that I have to do whatever it takes to keep him in juice boxes. I never promise to bring him treats; I never make promises I can’t keep. But the juice boxes, little individual servings of grape or apple or mixed-berry juice, are his special treat for his lunch box. Just like all the other kids have.