She taught you how to make a vodka cran when you were still in elementary school. You learned how many olives she likes skewered in a martini and how to cut and shape lemon peel so that it curls just so over the rim of a rocks glass. Your favorite cocktail is still a tall tequila sunrise garnished with a slice of orange and a maraschino cherry. While other kids were filling in worksheets, you were memorizing how many ounces there are in a cup—knowledge that comes in handy in life, no doubt—but still. 

By the time she gets home from work, you’ve been in the living room for hours. You haven’t gone to school in more than two months, instead getting up and dressed each morning and circling the neighborhood with your backpack until you see the gray Lexus leave the cul-de-sac, then skulking low through the bushes, letting yourself back in with the key you keep on a shoelace in your backpack. 

You fix yourself a TV dinner and eat from a tray in the living room in front of the television. You start with the morning talk shows, followed by soaps, game shows, a couple episodes of I Love Lucy, and the courtroom showdowns in the early afternoon before kids get home from school and you can switch over to Tom and Jerry. 

It’s only a matter of time before you get caught. Some nosy neighbor will see you sneaking back in, or the school will send a truant officer like they did for Dominic and his brother, but in the meantime, when you hear the garage door grinding open, you drape a white dish towel over your left arm and go take her order while she’s still got her heels and lipstick on, as she’s coming through the door with a paper bag from the market filled with cans of SpaghettiOs and green beans, making her so happy to see you, her little man, taking care of her at the end of a long day.