"I don't blame him," he drawled as he stepped into her living room. "There's something about a brown cardboard box, especially one with your name on it."
"Can I open it now, Mom? Can I? Please?"
"All right," Karen said in a weak voice, forgiving her son both his rudeness and his grammatical lapse for giving her something to do, for throwing her a lifeline she could use to pull herself away from the magnetism of that smile. She frowned at the box, gathering her wits. "It looks very sturdy. I think we'll need scissors, or a knife. I'll get one-"
Tony was already pulling one out of his pocket. He paused in the process of unfolding the blade, looked at Karen and said, "May I?" She hesitated, then nodded. He dropped to one knee beside the box.
It's because he looks so different, Karen thought, watching as he split the box's taped seams with a few deft strokes of the pocketknife. It was the first time she'd ever seen him in anything but coveralls. He seemed bigger, somehow, in the teal-blue turtle-necked sweater, brown leather jacket and well-worn jeans. Bigger and… sexier.
Sexier? Where had that come from? It was a word she hadn't even admitted to her thoughts for a very, very long time; doing so now caused her stomach to perform a curious and rather frightening flip-flop.
"There you go, kid," Tony grunted, folding the knife with a snap and tucking it back in his pocket. "Have at it."
It wasn't Andrew's way to go ripping into something helter-skelter; even as a very small child he'd opened his Christmas presents carefully, drawing out the suspense and maddening those with less methodical habits. Now, though his eyes were shining with anticipation, he folded back the box flaps almost reverently. His hands hovered over the layers of crumpled newspaper underneath, then slowly, slowly lifted them out of the box and laid them aside.
"Look for a card," Karen reminded him. The suspense was getting to her; she felt a strange, shivery excitement. "There must be something that says who it's from."
Tony picked up the discarded newspaper and shook it. "Doesn't seem to be one."
Andrew didn't appear to have heard them. He had taken a newspaper-wrapped object from the box and was holding it in his hands, and the look on his face was rapt, almost fearful.
Though she knew it would do no good to try to rush him, Karen couldn't keep from asking, "Well, what is it?"
"I don't know," Andrew answered, his voice hushed. "It's heavy."
"Well, come on, open it up." Even Tony was showing signs of impatience.
Andrew caught his breath and held his lower lip between his teeth. Then he slowly peeled away the paper and let it fall. For a heartbeat or two he was silent- dumbstruck, it seemed-cradling the small, heavy object in his hands as if it were made of glass, or high explosives.
"What on earth…?" Karen murmured.
"It's a train," Andrew said at last, beginning in an awed whisper and picking up speed and volume as the wonder of it sank in. "This is the engine-it's a locomotive. It's an electric train, a real one. It's a whole, real electric train!"
"Here," Tony said, "let me see that." Andrew handed over the engine and picked up another paper-wrapped package. Karen sat down on the arm of the couch.
"I don't understand this," she muttered, shaking her head. The whole thing made her feel edgy, even angry. She didn't like mysteries, especially those that involved her child. "Who would do this? Who would do such a thing? Where did this come from?"
"It's an old one," Tony said, squinting thoughtfully at the underside of the locomotive. "I wonder if it runs."
"An old electric train?" Karen said on a rising note of disbelief. And then, because it seemed so crazy, so implausible, so unbelievable, she threw up her hands and began to laugh.
"Oh, cool!" Andrew exclaimed. "Hey, look at this."
In a moment he had the whole train unpacked and lined up on the living-room rug, the engine and five cars: a coal tender, a flatcar, a boxcar, a cattle car, and, of course, a caboose. The paint was faded and completely gone in spots, with patches of rust showing through, but Andrew didn't seem to notice. He was busy examining each car, exclaiming with delight and enthusiasm over each and every detail-doors that opened, wheels that turned, removable side racks, and on the front of the locomotive, a tiny silver bell.
"Look, Tony… "
"Hmm?" Tony glanced up from the control box he'd been examining, then leaned over to see what wonders Andrew had discovered now.
The two heads came together, bending low over the train… two heads with dark, wavy hair, a little too long at the back of the neck, brushing collars and the tops of ears. And for a moment, just a moment, the picture froze in Karen's mind, as if someone had snapped a photograph. She heard-felt?-a click, felt things shift inside her; emotion caught at her breath and rushed stinging to her eyes and nose.
Hay fever, she thought in sudden panic, and rose from the arm of the couch to declare brightly, "Andrew, it's way past your dinnertime. You must be starving."
"Yeah… " Andrew said absently, frowning with the concentration required to fit two slightly bent pieces of track together. Then he looked up, his face alight with the infusion of a new idea. "Hey, can Tony stay for dinner, Mom?"
"Oh-" said Karen and Tony at the same time, and then stopped.
"You can stay," said Andrew, both assuring and imploring. "My mom's a good cook. Do you like grilled cheese?"
"Yeah, sure-with ketchup." Shining with amusement, Tony's eyes met Karen's over the top of her son's head.
"Of course," she heard herself say. "You're welcome to stay."
There was a pause, a moment of silence that seemed much longer than it was. Then Tony cleared his throat and said, "All right, sure. Thanks very much."
"Well," Karen said, "all right, then."
As she made her way to the kitchen on legs that weren't quite steady, she heard Andrew say, "Ketchup? On grilled cheese? That's gross!"
Chapter Three
When Karen came back, Tony was on his hands and knees on the carpet, helping Andrew lay track. There was enough of it to make a figure eight that stretched half the width of the living room, from the bay window that looked out over the street all the way to the front of the couch. They'd even had to move the furniture a little to make room for it.
The boy turned as his mother approached, looking like someone who'd just discovered birthday presents. "Hey, Mom-look, we can put our Christmas tree right there, in the middle of that loop over there by the window, so everybody can see the lights. And then the train can go around the tree-won't that be neat? We're getting a big tree this year," he confided to Tony. "A real big one, tall as the ceiling. Right, Mom?"
Karen glanced upward. Tony could see her calculating the height of the Victorian ceiling, the probable cost of a twelve-foot tree, and the logistics involved in getting such a tree up the stairs and into the apartment. Then she uttered the age-old maternal cop-out, "We'll see," as she placed a tray on the floor beside the train track.
On the tray, Tony observed, there were two plates made out of plastic decorated with cartoon characters, two plastic glasses in bright primary colors, two neatly folded paper napkins and two small plastic spoons. On each of the plates was a grilled cheese sandwich nicely browned, a little pile of carrot sticks, and a tiny plastic cup of applesauce. The glasses were filled with milk.
"There," she said, plunking down a bottle of ketchup like an exclamation point. She had her lashes lowered, trying to shield the laughter in her eyes from him, but parted lips and a rosy blush betrayed her. "Now, is there anything else I can get for you?"