Читать книгу Life & Other Passing Moments - Victor J. Banis - Страница 7

THE BIRTHDAY BOY

She baked him a wheat cake, because that was his favorite. He’d have been happy with anything, of course, or even with nothing at all. The sweetest boy, everyone said so. Never a moment of trouble, never a word of complaint. What mother could ask for a more perfect son?

She had gotten him a new pair of shoes. It had taken her the entire year to save the money for them, and she had had to forego so much that the money could have provided for them; but this mattered, this was important—that they celebrate these young years of his, that each of the birthdays must be made special. It was all she could do. The poor are limited, but not in love, at least. She would do this, and if her husband thought her foolish, he did not say so, and for that she was grateful.

When the cake was ready, she went to where he was working in the shop with his father. He let the boy come in alone. This was her time, mother and son together. He understood. That was his gift. It was all he could give.

“How he has grown,” the other women said, and did not know that their words were like a knife in her heart when they spoke them. He was a serious child, not given much to play or laughter, but when he smiled, as he did now, it was like the sun bursting through a bank of storm clouds. She could tell that he was delighted with the shoes, and the cake, which he especially loved. They ate it together, each crumb sticking painfully in her throat, but somehow, she managed to smile back at him, and if he guessed her pain, he did not remark on it, and only smiled more sweetly at her.

When the cake was gone, he put on the new shoes, and came to embrace her, and she had to fight the urge to cling to him, to hold him to her, because she knew that was foolish. You could not keep your boy a boy. No matter how tightly you held him, he would grow.

He kissed her brow and went out to show his new shoes, and she sat, the tears running freely now down her cheeks, her heart breaking within her. She did not look up when her husband came in.

He knelt on the dirt floor with her, and took her in his arms. His rough carpenter’s hands were astonishingly gentle. “Ah, Mary,” he said, wishing that he could take the pain away from her. “Don’t cry, my darling.”

“Oh, Joseph, Joseph,” she sobbed against his chest, “Another year gone by.”

He held her, and said nothing. What could he say? It had all been settled when the boy was born—those strange men, the lights—the time passed, and what would be, would be. He could not change any of it.

He could not help his heart aching, though, for the mother, knowing.