Page 36 of Thin Ice

"No."

"Did you break something?"

"No, Mom."

"Because the last time this house was this clean, you were twelve, and you'd put a baseball through the bathroom window."

"I didn't break anything. I just cleaned."

She set her bag down slowly. Walked into the kitchen. Opened a cabinet. Closed it. Ran her finger along the counter.

"You cleaned behind the stove."

"Yeah."

"Liam. Nobody cleans behind the stove."

She turned around and leaned against the counter, crossed her arms, raised her eyebrows, and waited.

"Alex is coming," I said. "He texted me last night."

"Ah… I see. Well, you've done a great job cleaning."

"Thanks."

"Good," she said. "That's good. I'll get an extra ham."

"Mom, you don't have to—"

"I'm getting an extra ham, Liam. Your uncle eats like he's being timed." She opened the fridge, scanned it, closed it. "I'll need rolls too. And pie stuff."

She was doing her thing, just turning empty shelves into a grocery list.

"Did you get him a gift?" she said, pulling a notepad from the junk drawer.

"No."

"Liam."

"I know."

"Christmas is in a few days."

"I know, Mom."

She looked at me over the notepad.

"Alright," she said. "Well, we'll go shopping. Tomorrow. We'll drive into town and figure it out."

"Shopping where?"

"Shopping everywhere." She said it like the plan was already finished. "I've been buying Christmas presents on a budget for thirty years."

"It's not about the budget. It's about—"

"I know what it's about." She wrote something on the notepad. Ham, rolls, pie. Tore the page off and stuck it on the fridge. "Was there anything meaningful? Something that meant something specific to the two of you?"

Meaningful. The word sat there again. I didn't have an answer.