Her own mother, Sally, was a world-class whiner who viewed every piece
of bad news as a personal catastrophe, even if the event that disturbed
her had occurred at the farthest end of the earth and had involved only
total strangers. Political unrest in the Philippines could set Sally
off on a despairing monologue about the higher prices she believed she
would be forced to pay for sugar and for everything containing sugar if
the Philippine cane crop was destroyed in a bloody civil war. A
hangnail was as troublesome to her as a broken arm to an ordinary
person, a headache invariably signaled an impending stroke, and a minor
ulcer in the mouth was a sure sign of terminal cancer. The woman
thrived on bad news and gloom.
Eleven years ago, when Heather was twenty, she'd been delighted to
cease being a Beckerman and to become a McGarvey--unlike some friends,
in that era of burgeoning feminism, who had continued to use their
maiden names after marriage or resorted to hyphenated surnames. She
wasn't the first child in history who became determined to be nothing
whatsoever like her parents, but she liked to think she was
extraordinarily diligent about ridding herself of parental traits.
As she got a spoon out of a drawer, picked up the bowl full of sherbet,
and went into the living room, Heather realized another upside to being
unemployed was that she didn't have to miss work to care for Toby when
he was home sick from school or hire a sitter to look after him. She
could be right there where he needed her and suffer none of the guilt
of a working mom.
Of course, their health insurance had covered only eighty percent of
the cost of the visit to the doctor's office on Monday morning, and the
twenty-percent copayment had caught her attention as never before. It
had seemed huge. But that was Beckerman thinking, not McGarvey
thinking.
Toby was in his pajamas in an armchair in the living room, in front of
the television, legs stretched out on a footstool, covered in
blankets.
He was watching cartoons on a cable channel that programmed exclusively
for kids.
Heather knew to the penny what the cable subscription cost. Back in
October, when she'd still had a job, she'd have had to guess at the
amount and might not have come within five dollars of it.
On the TV, a tiny mouse was chasing a cat, which had apparently been
hypnotized into believing that the mouse was six feet tall with fangs
and blood-red eyes.
'Gourmet orange sherbet,' she said, handing Toby the bowl and spoon,
'finest on the planet, brewed it up myself, hours upon hours of
drudgery, had to kill and skin two dozen sherbets to make it.'
'Thanks, Mom,' he said, grinning at her, then grinning even more
broadly at the sherbet before raising his eyes to the TV screen and
locking onto the cartoon again.
Sunday through Tuesday, he had stayed in bed without making a fuss, too
miserable even to agitate for television time. He had slept so much
that she'd begun to worry, but evidently sleep had been what he
needed.
