Page 63 of Thin Ice

"Merry Christmas, Liam."

Through the wall, the coffee maker started. His mom was up. Christmas morning happening in a kitchen twenty feet from where we were lying tangled on a twin bed both destroyed.

"I hope she didn't hear," I said.

"Oh god… yeah me too."

He pulled me up. Kissed me. Long, tasting himself in my mouth and not pulling away.

Chapter 17: Liam

We came out of the bedroom dressed and pretending that none of that had just happened. My mom was in the kitchen with coffee made and bacon going, because her answer to every holiday morning was bacon.

The kitchen was warm and bright and smelled of grease and the pine cleaner she'd used on the counter last night after everyone left. The window above the sink was fogged from the stove. The table still had the tablecloth on from dinner, a coffee ring near Linda's spot, the salt and pepper shakers pushed to the middle.

"Merry Christmas," she said, not turning around. She was at the stove in her robe and slippers, spatula in hand, her hair pulled up.

"Merry Christmas, Mom," I said.

"Merry Christmas," Alex said from behind me in the doorway.

We sat. She brought coffee. Sugar and milk for Alex, which she remembered from yesterday without asking. Black for me, which she'd been making since I was fourteen and started drinking it. She set the mugs down and sat across from us with her own cup, and looked at us over the rim.

"You two look rested," she said.

I did not make eye contact with Alex.

"Very rested," Alex said, and my mom looked at the ceiling for a second and then drank her coffee.

After having coffee and talking about last night, my mom stood up and said, "Let's do presents."

We made our way into the living room. Small and warm. The tree was still leaning left by the window, lights on, and underneath it around the base were the gifts.

Alex and I sat on the floor with our backs against the couch. My mom settled into the tattered armchair across from the tree, her coffee on the side table, her legs curled underneath her. The morning light came through the front window and hit the tree at an angle that made the ornaments glow.

Not many gifts. My mom and I didn't do Christmas big. There was a practical limit to what two people on her salary and my marina cash could put under a tree, and we'd both stopped pretending about it years ago. But what was there was wrapped. Some of it was wrapped well and some of it was wrapped by me, which meant taped in four places and crooked.

"You first," I said to my mom.

I handed her the box. She took it in her lap and pulled the ribbon off and peeled the paper carefully, the way she opened everything, saving the paper, folding it beside her on the armrest.

Inside: a pair of lined gloves. Real ones, insulated, waterproof. Thirty-two dollars, which was more than I'd spent on anything that wasn't food in months. But I knew she was still using those old, torn cotton gloves she'd bought when I was in high school. Her knuckles cracked every winter.

She opened the box and stopped.

"Liam."

"They're waterproof," I said. "And lined. So your hands don't freeze walking to the car at five in the morning."

She held them in her lap. Ran her thumb over the lining. She didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then she put them on and held her hands up and turned them back and forth.

"How do I look?" she said.

"You look like a mom with warm hands."

She took them off and put them back in the box carefully and got up, and kissed the top of my head. Her hand stayed on my shoulder for a second. Then she went to refill her coffee and said nothing else about it.

My turn. A few things under the tree with my name on them. A new hoodie, navy, from the outlet store. A paperback she'd seen at the pharmacy and thought I'd like. A bag of the beef jerky I'd been eating since middle school. Small stuff. Right stuff.