In the large open area at the end of the food court, the area where the mall would soon hold their big back-to-school extravaganza and set up Santa when Christmastime eventually rolled around, the mall overseers had, for the summer months, erected an enormous glittering carousel on a raised platform. The ride, a beautiful Victorianesque number, must have cost the mall a whole bag full of pretty pennies, and the line of people waiting to mount one of the painted animals was so long and unorganized that you probably could have called it a mob. From the speakers in the carousel’s hub came not the cheap, amusement-park calliope Libby would have expected, but a nicely reproduced piece of some classical symphony that Libby recognized but couldn’t name, something by Mozart or maybe Beethoven. It didn’t surprise Libby that Trevor had led them to an empty table close enough to the twirling carousel that they could almost reach out and touch its platform.
Trevor eased the tray onto the table without incident. He hopped into the chair on his side with a spryness that made Libby almost wistfully envious.
She thought, Ah, to be six again, and lowered herself into her own chair feeling a like a hundred-year-old invalid.
Actually, Libby’s doctor had recently assured her she was, for a twenty-eight-year-old mother, so perfectly fit that the editors of Healthy Living could have dedicated an entire issue of their magazine to her.
Libby wondered what the Healthy Living people would think about her greasy pile of tacos.
Smiling, she pushed the shopping bags beneath her seat and helped Trevor tear the corner from a packet of taco sauce.
“What’s funny?” Trevor asked. He took the sauce from Libby and squirted it unevenly onto his unwrapped taco.
“Oh,” Libby said, unwrapping the first of her own tacos, “nothing much. I was just thinking I might try to eat my dinner through my nose.” She brushed a strand of shoulder-length hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear.
Trevor grinned and wrinkled his own nose. “There’s boogers in there.”
Libby nodded thoughtfully, feigning consideration and trying not to laugh. “I guess I’ll just have to stick with my boring old mouth.”
Trevor giggled and lifted his taco. Half the shell’s contents spilled out during the trip from the wrapper to Trevor’s mouth, and after chewing his first bite long enough to liquefy it, he spent thirty seconds hand-transferring the spilled meat and cheese back into his shell.
Libby finished her first taco and inserted a straw into their cup of Mountain Dew. She took two sips and offered the drink to Trevor. He took a long swallow politely enough but left a pair of oily handprints on the cup and two even oilier lip prints on the straw.
While Trevor munched on his one and only taco, Libby started in on her second. Although their meals often consisted of equal parts conversation and eating, tonight they dined in silence. Trevor stared intently at the revolving children and over-chewed his food. Libby’s thought about Mike.
The divorce had been final for almost six months now. Mike had moved out five months before that. The whole marital breakdown was now nearly a year in the past, if you could believe that. Sometimes Libby could swear she and Mike had been together only weeks ago; other times, their marriage seemed so distant and foggy that it might have happened in another life altogether.
Today had been one of the weeks-ago days.
Libby finished her second taco and unwrapped the last. She’d been especially hungry this afternoon. Trevor had popped the final mouthful of his meal between his lips and chewed away at it with no less determination than he’d shown any of the previous bites.
“Hey, Mom,” he said after swallowing the food and helping himself to another swig of Mountain Dew.
Of course, Libby knew what he was going to ask, had expected it since they’d walked into the food court and caught their first glimpse of the carousel. She kept eating.
“You think maybe I could ride the merry-go-round while we wait?”
Libby pretended to think about it for a second. “You promise not to puke?”
Trevor smiled and rolled his eyes in a way that reminded Libby almost eerily of her ex-husband. “Yeah right. I’m not a baby.”
“Nope,” Libby said, “that’s true. How about we make a deal?”
Trevor waited.
Libby said, “You can ride it—”
Trevor’s eyes sparkled.
“But first you have to throw away our trash.”
Trevor nodded enthusiastically and balled up their empty wrappers. “You want the rest?” He pointed at her half-eaten third taco, and she shook her head.
“But let’s save the drink,” Libby suggested.
Most of the food court’s self-serve soda machines offered free refills. Mike wasn’t supposed to meet them for another half-hour, and with all the people milling about, the food court felt a little warm. Libby thought she’d need to make at least one more trip to the soda machine.
She used a napkin to give the tabletop a quick wipe down. The mall had people to do that, she knew, and sooner or later somebody would, but Libby hated leaving a mess. They were human beings, after all, civilized people, not pigs at a trough. Once she’d finished, Trevor piled everything but the Mountain Dew on their tray and rushed it to a nearby wastebasket. He dumped the trash and added the tray to a long-ignored pile.
He was a good kid. Libby didn’t have to remind herself how lucky she was.
By the time Trevor had returned to the table, Libby was out of her seat and reaching for their bags.
“Mom?”
Libby looked up and found him glancing purposefully toward the carousel. And not, she realized, because of his interest in the ride. At least not for that reason only. He was avoiding looking at her.
“Do you think maybe I could go alone?”
She didn’t have to ask for clarification. He wanted to leave her here and go wait in line by himself, be a big boy.
Her gut reaction was to refuse. With all the commotion in here, any sicko could pluck a kid from the crowd like an apple from a tree, but she was probably a little paranoid to assume there was a skulking maniac scoping out the gathered people like some hungry migrant eyeing an unguarded orchard. And even if (God forbid) said maniac did exist, half the kids in line were standing by themselves. The odds of the hypothetical kidnapper targeting Trevor had to be astronomical.
Still, Libby hesitated. Trevor was her baby.
He’s not a baby.
Her little boy.
He’s not so little anymore.
She thought about the way he’d avoided her eyes. It was one thing for him to feel a little nervous about waiting in line alone, but to be afraid just to ask…she didn’t want him so scared of her that he couldn’t pose a simple question.
“All right,” she said, “but you make sure you always stand where I can see you.”
“Really?” He smiled wide enough to reveal a chunk of beef stuck between two of the teeth, halfway back into his mouth.
Libby nodded. “Sure. I was sick of standing in line anyway.” This was true but not exactly what she was thinking. Abandonment—that’s what she was thinking—my baby is abandoning me. And although she knew Trevor would want to venture out on his own more and more in the coming years, that it would only get worse, she wouldn’t let herself feel hurt. It was part of growing up, after all, and it proved she was doing her job. You didn’t teach a bird to fly and then expect it to sit around the nest waiting for another half-chewed worm.