She sat in the room holding yarn, she had done herself up to look like a dedicated mother, knitting a sweater for him, only she had started a few days late. I driven him somewhere a thousand miles, he was chirping on & on about how he was going to see his mother. I had told him as much because it was the truth. She was his mother. Now for four years or something like it.

I gave him his birthday cake just three months prior to this. He had gleamed with a cone-shaped hat that was multi-colored, festive with craypaper-wrapped presents stacked neatly on the kitchen table. Happily, my friends took pictures while he smiled at the little candles on his chocolate cake.

I had asked him earlier that day what flavor he liked and he had said vanilla with chocolate frosting. It had been an easy feat: Teenage Ninja Turtles were his favorite and it wasn't hard to find plastic placards to mount all around on the chocolate. Of course, he didn't know what to do with the plastic when the candles were blown out, he smiled, but wavered when I began removing them. In fact, he started to whine as was customary now that I had gotten into the habit of giving him everything his heart desired. I could afford it but I was beginning to wonder about the trend I had set. I was not a spoiled brat but I had always known guys and girls who grew up that way, and they all ended up the same.

I wasn't making that judgment every time but I had to admit to myself that I couldn't afford the confrontation. I'd set up a boundary with him and would think I had made progress. Nevertheless, he always worked on that boundary until I caved, and I found myself doing just that more and more. Now, more often, there was no fight in me. Let the kid have whatever it was that he had fixated on and feed that fix temporarily. Until the next one came along.

So that was my story, what I was coming into this meeting with, but I knew she knew none of it. So let her knit away. I was cordial at greeting her. She didn't know me well. I was her uncle, and my sister, her mother, was an ATM for her. I know I had given money here and there, but that's where the connection dropped. I only heard thing she said from her mother, nothing directly from her mouth, so this was a first for a long time. She was modest but I suspected that was a front. She was acting, as she no doubt did when people were strictly watching her. She shook my hand and smiled a working class smile, no teeth, wan, streching of the lips. She looked down at her son, and looked him up and down, doting on him. Maybe that was legitimate.