How long did he have before Micah told them the truth?

Why had he kept it a secret this long?

He had a mission to finish and he wasn’t going to let that goth loser screw it up. There were twenty-four hours left in his personal timeline. He would finish.

He wouldn’t let his mother down.

Twenty years ago.

She sobbed as she sat cross-legged on the floor next to the Christmas tree. Their tree was scraggly, decorated with strings of popcorn, a few lights, and some of his little old toys, which his mother had hung with ribbons. “I love these old toys,” she’d told him. “They remind me that you’re no longer a little boy.”

He didn’t think toys from McDonald’s Happy Meals deserved to hang on their tree.

His friend Jason’s mother had decorated their tree with a million strings of white lights and dozens of glass ornaments that were all the exact same shade of blue. She’d bought matching strings of shiny blue beads. Jason said a blue tree was dumb, but he thought it was the most beautiful tree he’d ever seen. It made their popcorn and toys seem cheap and lame.

His heart broke as he watched his mother cry. Lately it seemed all she did was cry. They were poor. He understood that and knew better than to ask to go see the movie Scream with his friends. Movies at the theater were not in their budget. He also knew he wouldn’t get the videotapes of the Evil Dead movies that he’d put on his Christmas list.

His mother believed horror movies would warp his mind.

Her hatred of them increased his desire to see them.

He knew what had crushed her this time. It was that man. It was always a man. Why did they choose his mother to abuse? This last one had started off so good. He’d been kind and helpful, and appeared genuinely interested in helping him with his math homework. He’d taken him to a Winterhawks hockey game.

He’d never been to the ice arena downtown. It was loud and cold and huge and packed with people excited to cheer for their team. Best of all, he’d seen a fight. They’d been sitting in the right place when it’d happened. Two players had slammed into the side of the rink, making the plexiglass shake. The people in the rows in front of him had leaped out of their seats and beaten their hands on the glass, shouting, “Fight, fight, fight!” One player held the other in a headlock and swung his fist at his face over and over.

Blood had dripped on the ice.

All his fifth grade friends had been impressed when he’d told them the next day.

The man had come to their house every week, sometimes eating dinner with them, sometimes showing him how to throw a football in the backyard. But then the man had pulled back, only offering to pick him up and take him to McDonald’s, saying his spare time was tight.

He’d known the man lied.

It’d happened a few times before. The men would use him to get close to his mother. He didn’t mind that much. He wanted his mother to find someone who’d bring her flowers and make her happy. Each time a man started coming to the house, she’d get excited. She’d invite him to dinner, bake her special apple pies, and spend an hour choosing her clothes and putting on her makeup. He knew his mother was delighted when it took her a long time to get ready for a simple dinner at home.

But the men never came around for long. This time the man had called and said he couldn’t take him to the video arcade until late in January. He claimed he was swamped at work.

He knew a brush-off when he heard one. His mother did, too.

He’d thought this man might be the one. He’d stayed very late one night last week, drinking wine and laughing with his mother. She’d made an incredible dinner. A pot roast with gravy, and mashed potatoes with lots of butter. There were even store-bought rolls. She never bought rolls, saying they were too expensive and not good for him. Dessert was a cheesecake, and he’d had two pieces. She’d smiled as she dished up his second piece, and he’d hoped they would eat like that every night from now on. When he’d gone to bed, the man and his mother had been sitting on the couch, two empty bottles of wine on the table beside them, leaning close as they talked. He’d been happy when he crawled in bed, enjoying the sound of his mother’s laughter from the other room. She didn’t laugh very often. Maybe their luck was turning.

The sound of the man’s car had woken him at four A.M. when it backed out of their driveway. He’d smiled as he watched the taillights move down their street. He must really have liked his mother to stay so late.

Within the next week he’d realized the man wasn’t coming back.

“Why do they do this to me?” she sobbed from beside the tree.

There were three presents under the tree. He knew one of them had been for the latest man. Would he ever come back to get it? He knew she’d spent too much on the man’s present because she’d had little money left for his gifts. He suspected that one of them was new pajamas. His current ones stopped halfway down his calves. New pajamas weren’t anything to brag to his friends about. He’d have to lie when they all shared what they’d gotten for Christmas. His mom had promised to make it up to him for his birthday in June.

Anger flowed through him. How could these men do this to his mother over and over?

Other men had come in the past. They took him to movies and once his mother started inviting them to stay for dinner, they’d leave the two of them in the dust.

It must be him. He wasn’t clever enough or engaging enough or talented in sports. The men found him boring and unworthy of their time. His mother probably knew this but was too polite to place the blame on his shoulders where it belonged.