Read The Boy for Free Online Page B

from his room dressed in jeans and the Edmonton Oilers hockey jersey Jake bought for him. They opened their gifts last night and after the hockey shirt, Daniel didn’t seem to care about anything else, not even the Nintendo game and the skater shoes the price of which made Louise gasp. The whole pile of gifts frankly appalled her. She’d asked Daniel for a wish list. He rattled off electronic games, phones, items that were beyond her concept of gifts, and into the realm of adult toys that one should earn rather than expect to be given. Finally, she picked two movies on his list that sounded reasonable. She was, Jake told her gently, pretty hard-nosed on this stuff and it wasn’t as though they couldn’t afford it. Was she going to be this tight with their kids?
    â€œYes,” she said. “I’ve waited a long time for kids, I’ve had the chance to watch a lot of parents, and I’m warning you, Jake, that I’m going to be tough.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “About everything? We haven’t seen a tough side of you, I don’t think. Are you just breaking in here slowly? Dan and I should be very careful?”
    She laughed finally. “Hey, I’m tough, but I’m fair. If I do my job right, you shouldn’t even notice.”
    In fact, in these first weeks things had gone far more smoothly than she expected. But she knew all about honeymoon periods with kids, and when she opened Daniel’s present she had confirmation that what was happening at home was probably no indicator at all of what he was doing outside.
    The perfume was one she didn’t know, but she could tell this wasn’t the variety found on the open shelves at the drugstore. Daniel watched her face while she opened the package and she likely didn’t disappoint him, because she was genuinely touched that he would choose something feminine and personal. She’d expected a box of candy, or a coffee mug. A teacher gift.
    Later, she asked Jake how much money he’d given Daniel for his Christmas shopping.
    â€œWhy do you want to know?”
    â€œBecause that Lancôme perfume he bought for me has to have cost at least forty, maybe even fifty dollars. It must have broken the budget.”
    â€œNah, he said it was under twenty, Louise. No offense, but I can’t see him spending fifty dollars on a present for anyone, especially something like perfume.”
    Danny’s present to Jake was a can of cashews. Tradition, he said. When Danny was about six, his mom had told him that cashews were the perfect gift for his dad, and ever since that had been the stock gift. It was a joke between them by now, Jake said, and he and Danny would eat the nuts together while they watched the next Oilers game on television.
    â€œHow much did you give him?” she asked again.
    â€œSixty bucks,” he said. “Ten dollars each for the five people he was buying for and an extra ten if he went a bit over. As we agreed, small gifts, it’s the thought that counts.”
    Daniel bought gifts for Louise, Jake, Jake’s mother, Alice next door, and Louise’s dad. Nothing for his friends? Louise quietly asked Jake when she saw the list.
    â€œNo,” he said abruptly. “He doesn’t have anyone that close.”
    Last night, Danny took a box of Turtles over to Alice. They were, he claimed, her favourite candy. Considering that Alice wore top dentures that slipped onto her lower lip when she allowed herself a stern smile, Louise doubted that, but chocolates seemed a suitable gift for a neighbour. For his grandmother, who Louise still hadn’t met, Dan bought a package of notepaper which was wrapped and sent away a week before Christmas. Grandma Peters had sent a cheque made out to Jake that was to go directly into an educational fund, and a pair of cowboy patterned pyjamas, size sixteen. Danny had put them on last night and clowned around, flapping the long sleeves, yodeling.