Free Number 8 by Anna Fienberg

the license plate.
    â€œHey, Asim, check this out!”
    We both watch it glide past.
    â€œ777,” I shiver. “It’s enough to give you the creeps.”
    Asim looks thoughtful. “I’ve seen that car before. Last week, I think. It was out front, going down Valerie Street. Slowly. Maybe there is something wrong with the engine. They are testing it out?”
    â€œLooks in pretty good condition to me. But what a crap license plate.”
    Asim grins. “Think of the heavenly spheres.”
    When we go inside, the front door clicks and Mom is home. She trudges down the corridor with plastic bags of groceries. I quickly clear a space on the kitchen table for her to dump the stuff.
    â€œHi, Mom.”
    â€œHi, Jackson honey.”
    She lets out her breath in a big sigh. Her face looks tired.
    I always know what kind of mood Mom’s in when she gets home. You just need one glance. Today she’s hot and fed up and wonders what the point of her life is. She’s probably had to serve paunchy businessmen who snap orders at her. Maybe the cook was rude to her. He is sometimes.
    â€œHow was your day, Mom?”
    â€œBoring as meat without salt.” Mom smiles and ruffles my hair. “Do you know that play from Shakespeare? Where the king asks each of his three daughters to describe how much they love him? Well, two of them say things like we love you more than gold, or diamonds or whatever, not giving it much thought, but the last one ponders for ages and says, ‘I love you more than meat loves salt.’ This is the best answer—think of a plain steak without salt, especially in those days when the meat was off half the time. But her father is a stupid vain man and he banishes her. He doesn’t see the truth. Stupid question, anyway. Hi, Asim, how’s it going?”
    â€œVery well, thank you, Mrs. Ford.” He is hovering in the doorway. Sometimes my mother is like a gale-force wind and you feel like a blade of grass in her path. Even when she’s tired.
    â€œHave you boys had something to eat?”
    â€œYes,” I say.
    Mom nods and flops down on a chair at the kitchen table. Her shoulders spread across the back of the chair.
    â€œWould you like me to make you a cup of tea?” I say. “You can go and lie down for a bit.”
    Those nights Mom sang at the casino, she walked in the door a different way. She seemed to float, drifting aroundthe kitchen lighting incense and humming to herself. If I was up, I’d stay a while and sit on the stool, soaking her up like a cat in the sun. We’d chat and she’d tell me the nice things people said about her voice. But the nights after Tony took over, she was like cement, her mouth set and heavy. So I’d make her hot milk with honey and tell all my best jokes. She’d try to smile but the cement got in the way.
    â€œThanks, Jackson. I’ve got some nice seafood pasta from work,” Mom says as she walks up the hall to her room. “You’ll stay for dinner, Asim? I’ve got enough for an army. You need some feeding up, sweetheart. I’m sure you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”
    What, since yesterday? I roll my eyes at Asim, but he won’t look at me.
    â€œNo, I haven’t, Mrs. Ford. But thank you, I would like to stay very much.”
    She grins at us and hesitates there in the hall. Then she sort of lunges back and hugs Asim. “We’ll have a lovely dinner,” she blurts, “made of jellyfish and sea snails and puppy dogs’ tails!” She makes a Frankenstein face, and disappears into her room.
    â€œSorry about that,” I mumble.
    â€œIt’s okay.” Asim smiles.
    Ever since Mom met Asim, she’s always trying to pat his hand or hug him or make him laugh. She can’t get over the fact that he’s lost his mother. Mom thinks she has to fix everything up all the time, she just doesn’t realize there are some