He was taller than he'd been in November 9-year-olds grow in spurts that seemed to happen overnight. And he had developed over the winter the habit of asking questions that he actually wanted the answers to rather than the careful silence he maintained when she first arrived. He sat down with his school books and opened to the page he'd been working on last time, which was long division, which he did not like. He worked for about 10 minutes in silence while she worked on the ledger. Then he said without looking up from his book, "Tissa, did you have something of your mother's after she died? " She put her pen down.
She looked at him. He was still looking at his book, pencil moving, as though the question had been idle. But the way his pencil had slowed her was not idle at all. "Yes," she said. "I had a recipe box. " A little wooden one she'd kept since before I was born.
Did it help? He said, "Having it? " She thought about this honestly because he deserved honesty. It helped me feel like she was still present somehow. Like the things she cared about were still real even though she wasn't there to care about them. He was quiet for a moment.
The pencil stopped entirely. Mom had a tin of hand cream. He said cherry and almond. She kept it on the windowsill in the bedroom. After she died, it stayed there.
He paused. It was empty. It's been empty the whole time. She did not move. She did not speak.
She waited. I put it under my bed last winter, he said, because I was scared someone would throw it away. He looked up at her then directly with those old young eyes. I know the cream isn't there anymore. I know it's just the tin, but it smells like her still a little.
Then you should keep it, she said. For as long as you want it. I thought maybe stopped. He looked back at his book. There's a tin of the same kind at the dry good store in Mil Haven.
I saw it when we were there for the auction. Cherry and almond. Same label. She looked at him. He was looking very hard at his long division.