Mommy's Boy Quotes

It wasn't okay. I didn't want her to leave. I didn't care if Jesus wanted her or not. She was my mommy. He could take an old mommy. One that didn't have little boys to take care of.

Can I have a pony?” Oh, boy. I think about it for exactly one second. “Absolutely.” She squeezes me tighter and squeals. “Only…don’t tell mommy until after it’s delivered, okay?

My brothers nodded their heads in unison. All of them but me. It wasn’t okay. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t care if Jesus wanted her or not. She was my mommy. He could take an old mommy. One that didn’t have little boys to take care of.

i was raped, too sexually assaulted in seventh grade, tenth grade. the summer after graduation, at a party i was 16 i was 14 i was 5 and he did it for three years i loved him i didn't even know him he was my best friend's brother, my grandfather, father, mommy's boyfriend, my date, my cousin, my coach i met him for the first time that night and- 4 guys took turns, and- i'm a boy and this happened to me, and- ...i got pregnant i gave up my daughter for adoption... did it happen to you, too?

A little boy who's discovered the monster under the bed is actually real, and it's screwing Mommy.

Now that we all have partners, all husbands should come pick up their projects." Pick up our project? Shrugging, I stand up and stretch my arms. Henry also stands. "No way, dude," I say. "I'm the man in this relationship." "Oh yeah, absolutely," he says, grinning. He sits back down as I walk to the closet to see this project, which turns out to be one of those fake electronic babies. Oh good God. Ms. Bonner hands me a fake baby boy. The doll has these creepy glass eyes that look like they’re staring straight into my soul. I hold the doll out in front of me like it's a flaming bag of poo and carry it back to Henry. "Congratulations, Mommy," I say, dropping the doll into his hands. You could've told me I knocked you up.

I moved quickly, putting myself between the two of them. "Stop it!" I shouted. "I have way too much to worry about right now to also have to pull you two off each other. Jeesh, talk about immature." Both guys kept glaring at each other over my head. "I said, stop it!" And I smacked their chests. That made them blink and shift their attention to me. Now it was my turn to do the glaring. "You know, you two are ridiculous with your puffing up and your testosterone and crap. I mean, I could summon the elements and kick both of your butts." Heath shuffled his feet and looked embarrassed. Then he grinned at me, like a cute little boy whose mommy had just yelled at him. "Sorry, Zo. I forget you have some major mojo going on.

Why is Mommy crying?” the young boy asks his dad, all sugared up and bewildered with concern. “Because you’re an asshole,” barks back the father with exasperated logic.

A friend of ours, the wife of a pastor at a church in Colorado, had once told me about something her daughter, Hannah, said when she was three years old. After the morning service was over one Sunday, Hannah tugged on her mom’s skirt and asked, “Mommy, why do some people in church have lights over their heads and some don’t?

This is your baby sister, Christian. Her name is Mia.” Mommy lets me hold her. She is very small. With black, black hair. She smiles. She has no teeth. I stick out my tongue. She has a bubbly laugh. Mommy lets me hold the baby again. Her name is Mia. I make her laugh. I hold her and hold her. She is safe when I hold her. Elliot is not interested in Mia. She dribbles and cries. And he wrinkles his nose when she does a poop. When Mia is crying Elliot ignores her. I hold her and hold her and she stops. She falls asleep in my arms. “Mee a,” I whisper. “What did you say?! Mommy asks, and her face is white like a chalk. “Mee a.” “Yes. Yes. Darling boy. Mia. Her name is Mia.” And Mommy starts to cry with happy, happy tears.

Remember those reserves I mentioned? Time to call them up. I pick up the phone and dial. A soothing greets me after the second ring. The perfect combination of strength and comfort, and I answer back. “Hi, Mom.” You thought I was calling someone else, didn’t you? Deep down—I’m a momma’s boy. I’m man enough to admit it. 'And trust me, I’m not the only one. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? That’s the reason your boyfriend can’t manage to get his socks or underwear actually in the hamper-because he grew up with mommy doing it for him.

Cheerleading was not a hit: “What am I doing here, Mommy? I’m freezing cold and I’m cheering for a bunch of boys to win a game! Who cheers for me?” (Exactly, Adolpha. Exactly.)

Tristan’s Mom: What are these? Tristan: Your granddaughters. Tristan’s Dad: Don’t worry honey, you don’t look old enough to be a mother let alone a grandmother. Tristan’s Mom: Again with the flattery, thank you dear. Where did they come from? Tristan: Camie gave birth last night. Jeff: I didn’t know she was pregnant. Tristan: She wasn’t. It was a miracle. Tristan’s Mom: Do they have names? Tristan: Phineas and Ferb. Jeff: From the cartoon? Tristan’s Dad: That figures, he named the dog Scooby. Tristan’s Mom: They sound like boy names. Tristan: Mom! Shhh, you’ll give them a complex. Jeff: If that Ferb one climbs my legs again I’m drop kicking it. Tristan: That’s child abuse and I’ll press charges. Besides, they just miss their mom. Jeff: I’m calling CPS (cat protective services)… Tristan: What for? Jeff: Because you’re making your kids live in a broken home unnecessarily. Tristan: I’m not talking to you anymore. Jeff: Fine, as long as you to talk to her. Tristan: Back off. Jeff: Nope, not gonna do it. Tristan: I’m warning you man. Jeff: You miss her too. Tristan: Yeah, so? Jeff: So do something about it. Tristan: Happy? Last night was miserable and I think it’s too late. Jeff: You still have a 12 year old ace in the hole. Tristan: Saving it as a last resort. Tristan’s Dad: Honey, do you have a clue as to what they’re talking about? Tristan’s Mom: No and I don’t want one. Jeff: I’m just helping my nieces get their parents back together. Dude, it’s time. Make the call. Tristan: Alright, I did it. But I get the feeling I’m about to do business with the mob. I hope I don’t wake up with the head of my horse in bed with me tonight. Jeff: Well, a good father will do anything he can to protect his family, even if that means he runs the risk of sleeping with the fishes. Tristan: Okay girls, your aunt helped Daddy come up with a plan and if it works you should get to see Mommy today. Cross your paws, or claws, or whatever…just cross something for luck.

She said when a boy and a girl dog copulate, the head of the boy's penis swells and the vaginal muscles of the girl constrict. Even after sex, both dogs remain locked together, helpless and miserable for a brief period of time. The Mommy said this same scenario described most marriages.

Girls can drive trucks if they want to. They can do pretty much anything a boy can do.” “They can’t pee standing up. I tried it, and Mommy got really mad because I made a huge mess.

What do you mean 'speaking of fairy tales'? Since when do fairy tales include gigolos?" Annie asked. "Well, since most fairy-tale princes are either gay or weirdly attached to their mommies, I think Walt Disney should seriously consider their inclusion," Sophie answered.

Maybe this is why Mommy told Margot not to go to college with a boyfriend. When you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you only want to be with that person, and you forget about everybody else, and then when the two of you break up, you’ve lost all your friends. They were off doing fun stuff without you.

Big words for such a little girl,” he said. “Same old, same old, from the same, scared little boy,” I shot back. “Still climbing into fountains to hide from Mommy?” “Mommy?” he repeated. “I killed that bitch last night.

Uncle Chris is gay,” Cassie tells the realtor with relish. “Really,” Jessica says, a polite but amused expression plastered on her face. “Mhmm,” Cassie says. “That means he doesn’t like girls. He likes boys instead. My mommy says that’s okay, though. You can like whoever you want to like.” “Is that so”. “Yes. So when I grow up, I’m going to marry a penguin.

There is also the ceaseless outpouring of books on toilet training, separating one sibling's fist from another sibling's eye socket, expressing breast milk while reading a legal brief, helping preschoolers to "own" their feelings, getting Joshua to do his homework, and raising teenage boys so they become Sensitive New Age Guys instead of rooftop snipers or Chippendale dancers. Over eight hundred books on motherhood were published between 1970 and 2000; only twenty-seven of these came out between 1970 and 1980, so the real avalanch happened in the past twenty years. We've learned about the perils of "the hurried child" and "hyperparenting," in which we schedule our kids with so many enriching activities that they make the secretary of state look like a couch spud. But the unhurried child probably plays too much Nintendo and is out in the garage building pipe bombs, so you can't underschedule them either. Then there's the Martha Stewartization of America, in which we are meant to sculpt the carrots we put in our kids' lunches into the shape of peonies and build funhouses for them in the backyard; this has raised the bar to even more ridiculous levels than during the June Cleaver era.

Oh mommy! You are my world, my love. I am your little boy, and I stole your heart.

Nu metal kids are cul-de-sac crybabies with their baseball hats on backward. Every song is a little boy crying in his bedroom about how his girlfriend won’t make him a sandwich like his mommy used to do.

Mommy, how come Dona Duck don have no pants?” Will sat on the couch eating cookies. Bree looked up. Then she glanced at the Donald Duck cartoon on the TV. “He have top but he no have bottoms,” “Good point,” she said. And yet the duck always wore a towel after he showered. “Dat’s odd,” Will remarked. He leaned over his plate and began to split his cookies into two piles. “And where his pee pee go? He a boy right, mommy? But he don’ have no pee pee. How he go to bafroom?

of the problem was that Chaos got a little creation-happy. It thought to its misty, gloomy self: Hey, Earth and Sky. That was fun! I wonder what else I can make. Soon it created all sorts of other problems—and by that I mean gods. Water collected out of the mist of Chaos, pooled in the deepest parts of the earth, and formed the first seas, which naturally developed a consciousness—the god Pontus. Then Chaos really went nuts and thought: I know! How about a dome like the sky, but at the bottom of the earth! That would be awesome! So another dome came into being beneath the earth, but it was dark and murky and generally not very nice, since it was always hidden from the light of the sky. This was Tartarus, the Pit of Evil; and as you can guess from the name, when he developed a godly personality, he didn't win any popularity contests. The problem was, both Pontus and Tartarus liked Gaea, which put some pressure on her relationship with Ouranos. A bunch of other primordial gods popped up, but if I tried to name them all we’d be here for weeks. Chaos and Tartarus had a kid together (don’t ask how; I don’t know) called Nyx, who was the embodiment of night. Then Nyx, somehow all by herself, had a daughter named Hemera, who was Day. Those two never got along because they were as different as…well, you know. According to some stories, Chaos also created Eros, the god of procreation... in other words, mommy gods and daddy gods having lots of little baby gods. Other stories claim Eros was the son of Aphrodite. We’ll get to her later. I don’t know which version is true, but I do know Gaea and Ouranos started having kids—with very mixed results. First, they had a batch of twelve—six girls and six boys called the Titans. These kids looked human, but they were much taller and more powerful. You’d figure twelve kids would be enough for anybody, right? I mean, with a family that big, you’ve basically got your own reality TV show. Plus, once the Titans were born, things started to go sour with Ouranos and Gaea’s marriage. Ouranos spent a lot more time hanging out in the sky. He didn't visit. He didn't help with the kids. Gaea got resentful. The two of them started fighting. As the kids grew older, Ouranos would yell at them and basically act like a horrible dad. A few times, Gaea and Ouranos tried to patch things up. Gaea decided maybe if they had another set of kids, it would bring them closer…. I know, right? Bad idea. She gave birth to triplets. The problem: these new kids defined the word UGLY. They were as big and strong as Titans, except hulking and brutish and in desperate need of a body wax. Worst of all, each kid had a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Talk about a face only a mother could love. Well, Gaea loved these guys. She named them the Elder Cyclopes, and eventually they would spawn a whole race of other, lesser Cyclopes. But that was much later. When Ouranos saw the Cyclops triplets, he freaked. “These cannot be my kids! They don’t even look like me!” “They are your children, you deadbeat!” Gaea screamed back. “Don’t you dare leave me to raise them on my own!

Ugh, I should’ve known Bangs Boy was going to be a part of this,” Keefe grumbled. “And I’m assuming by ‘talked,’ you mean one of your Look-at-my-fancy-Telepath-tricks! kind of chats, right? Mommy Dearest didn’t send him to deliver a special message, did she?” He sat up straighter. “Wait. He didn’t blow up anything, did he?

The best parent is both parents" means mommy is no substitute for daddy, money is not substitute for daddy, and another man is no substitute for daddy. Just as daddy is no substitute for mommy, money is no substitute for mommy, and another woman is no substitute for mommy. Divorce does not change that. The best parent is still both parents.

A few days later she sent him a two page, single-spaced, typewritten letter preaching to him about the Catholic stand on premarital sex, and especially condemning the use of that horrendous tool of the devil, the seed-killing prophylactic. Don't worry. Those facetious words weren't hers. I paraphrased. This boy was more browbeaten by mommy than Norman Bates.

CHAPTER ONE A Boy at the Window FOR A LONG TIME AFTER THAT SUMMER, the four Penderwick sisters still talked of Arundel. Fate drove us there, Jane would say. No, it was the greedy landlord who sold our vacation house on Cape Cod, someone else would say, probably Skye. Who knew which was right? But it was true that the beach house they usually rented had been sold at the last minute, and the Penderwicks were suddenly without summer plans. Mr. Penderwick called everywhere, but Cape Cod was booked solid, and his daughters were starting to think they would be spending their whole vacation at home in Cameron, Massachusetts. Not that they didn’t love Cameron, but what is summer without a trip to somewhere special? Then, out of the blue, Mr. Penderwick heard through a friend of a friend about a cottage in the Berkshire Mountains. It had plenty of bedrooms and a big fenced-in pen for a dog—perfect for big, black, clumsy, lovable Hound Penderwick—and it was available to be rented for three weeks in August. Mr. Penderwick snatched it up, sight unseen. He didn’t know what he was getting us into, Batty would say. Rosalind always said, It’s too bad Mommy never saw Arundel—she would have loved the gardens. And Jane would say, There are much better gardens in heaven. And Mommy will never have to bump into Mrs. Tifton in heaven, Skye added to make her sisters laugh. And laugh they would, and the talk would move on to other things, until the next time someone remembered Arundel.

Panic Is Good Creative panic is good. Here’s why: Our greatest fear is fear of success. When we are succeeding—that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level—that’s when panic strikes. It did for me when my book crashed, and it was the best thing that happened to me all year. When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane. Have you ever watched a small child take a few bold steps away from its mother? The little boy or girl shows great courage. She ventures forth, feels exhilaration, and then … she realizes what she has done. She freaks. She bolts back to Mommy. That’s you and me when we’re growing.

Parents are very comfortable talking to their children about gender, and they work very hard to counterprogram against boy-girl stereotypes. That ought to be our model for talking about race. The same way we remind our [children], ‘Mommies can be doctors just like daddies,’ we ought to be telling all children that doctors can be any skin color. It’s not complicated what to say. It’s only a matter of how often we reinforce it.”5

ULTIMATE BETRAYALS: [OH GOODY—ANOTHER SECTION ON MOMMY DEAREST. WE GET IT. SHE’S CREEPY. I DIDN’T FIGURE IT OUT FAST ENOUGH, AND SHE USED ME FOR A WHILE. BUT THAT’S ALL DONE NOW, AND IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE I TAKE HER DOWN. LET’S MOVE ON, SHALL WE?] A FOOLISHLY DANGEROUS PLAN: [I SHOULD PROBABLY BE OFFENDED BY THAT TITLE. BUT… RUNNING OFF TO JOIN THE NEVERSEEN DEFINITELY WASN’T MY SMARTEST MOVE. I THOUGHT I COULD TAKE THEM DOWN FROM THE INSIDE. AND YEAH, IT PRETTY MUCH BACKFIRED.] [I DID LEARN SOME STUFF, THOUGH!] [SORT OF…] [I’M STILL PIECING IT ALL TOGETHER. I MEAN, I WOULDN’T DO IT AGAIN OR RECOMMEND IT TO ANYONE ELSE OR ANYTHING (HEAR THAT, BANGS BOY???), BUT IT WASN’T A TOTAL WASTE.] [OKAY, MAYBE IT WAS.] A WAY WITH ALICORNS: [IT’S TRUE. GLITTER BUTT LOVES ME.] [SAY IT WITH ME: KEEFE! KEEFE! KEEFE!] EMOTIONAL SUPPORT STUFFED ANIMAL: [YOU GUYS MADE AN OFFICIAL RECORD ABOUT MRS. STINKBOTTOM???? I CAN’T DECIDE IF THAT’S AWESOME, OR REALLY, REALLY SAD.…] [SAD FOR YOU GUYS—NOT ME. SLEEPING WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL IS THE BEST. YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME!] [ALSO: DOES THIS MEAN FITZY HAS A SECTION ON HIS SPARKLY RED DRAGON SNUGGLE BUDDY????????] A MERCADIR—WITH THE SCARS TO PROVE IT: [EESH—THANK GOODNESS I CAN REDACT THIS. I REALLY DON’T NEED ANYONE REMINDING FOSTER HOW MAD SHE WAS AT ME. THE POINT IS: I BEAT THE OGRE KING IN A SPARRING MATCH. I DOUBT EVEN GIGANTOR COULD DO THAT!] FINAL NOTE: [WHY IS THERE NOT A SECTION ON MY AMAZING HAIR????] [HERE, LET ME FIX THAT FOR YOU!] [IT’S DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE THE ABSOLUTE PERFECTION OF KEEFE’S TRADEMARK HAIRSTYLE. COUNTLESS OTHERS HAVE TRIED TO EMULATE IT, BUT THEY’VE ALL FAILED. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE LORD HUNKYHAIR. IT’S A RESPONSIBILITY THAT MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY!] [HUNKYHAIR → OUT]

back,” Daddy said. “It’ll work out.” He had no idea what to do about Helen. They spoke a completely different language. He was an old-timer who called school “schoolin”’ and called me “boy.” He had run off from Jim Crow in the South and felt that education, any education, was a privilege. Helen was far beyond that. Weeks passed, months, and Helen didn’t return. Finally Jack called. “I found her. She’s living with some crazy woman,” Jack said. She told Ma she didn’t know much about the lady other than that she wore a lot of scarves and used incense. Mommy got the address and went to the place herself. It was a dilapidated housing project near St. Nicholas Avenue, with junkies and winos standing out front. Mommy stepped past them and walked through a haze of reefer smoke and took the elevator to the eighth floor. She went to the apartment door and listened. There was music playing on a stereo inside, and the voice of someone on the phone. She knocked on the door. The stereo lowered. “Who is it?” someone asked. It sounded like Helen. “I’m here to see Helen,” Mommy said. Silence. “I know you’re there, Helen,” Mommy said. Silence. “Helen. I want you to come home. Whatever’s wrong we’ll fix. Just forget all of it and come on home.” From down the hallway, a doorway opened and a black woman watched in silence as the dark-haired, bowlegged white lady talked to the closed door. “Please come home, Helen.” The door had a peephole in it. The peephole slid back. A large black eye peered out. “Please come home, Helen. This is no place for you to be. Just come on home.” The peephole closed.

Right around that time, I started dating a guy named Jeff. He was a classically handsome, popular guy. But there was something different about him too. He was angrier than most teenage boys, and a little misunderstood. I ignored the signs that he was probably a bit unstable. Signs like when they gave him a fish fillet at McDonald’s instead of a Big Mac, he became so furious that he cried. Truly lost it. Real tears of rage. Like the kind of tears guys are only supposed to get when they watch a movie that touches on their dad issues. (So, most movies.) Isn’t it funny that they say most girls have daddy issues, when really, every dude does? But this dude had daddy, mommy, doggy, and fish fillet issues. I just thought, Well, he can’t help it. But I understand him. I’m here for him. Even though we were both generally well liked, when we were together it was us vs. the world. I’ve only recently broken my pattern of being drawn to the “you’re the only one who gets me” guy. Which is a bad guy to be drawn to, and it’s not a coincidence if everyone—including all your friends and family and your dog—dislikes him. But

I never understood why God would climb into these people with such fervor, until I became a grown man myself and came to understand the nature and power of God’s many blessings, but even as a boy I knew God was all-powerful because of Mommy’s utter deference to Him, and also because she would occasionally do something in church that I never saw her do at home or anywhere else: at some point in the service, usually when the congregation was singing one of her favorite songs, like “We’ve Come This Far by Faith” or “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” she would bow down her head and weep.

Will, my darling, my angel, the light of my life - I'm actually relieved you're gay. You really weren't all that excited about women, and I don't like to think about you lonely." Aw. Will's mommy loved him. Even big boys needed to know that. .... "How long have you known?" his mom asked curiously, and he smiled and looked at the clock. "About three hours now," he said dreamily, "Best three hours of my life." Was it possible to hear silent laughter? "Well then," his mother said, her voice choked, "you obviously still have things to do!" "Well, no, I'm sort of done now-" "I gotta go, sweetheart!" She hung up before he even had the time to tell her about the job.

Being good at something feels great. Playing ninja turtles with two little boys for hours on end is sometimes less great. It’s so easy to hop on a plane or say yes to one more meeting or project, to get that little buzz of being good at something, or the pleasure bump of making someone happy, or whatever it is that drives you. And many of us continue to pretend we don’t have a choice—the success just happened, and we’re along for the ride. The opportunities kept coming, and anyone in our position would have jumped to meet them. But we’re the ones who keep putting up the chairs. If I work in such a way that I don’t have enough energy to give to my marriage, I need to take down some chairs. If I say yes to so many work things that my kids only get to see tired mommy, I need to take down some chairs. I know I’ve let my work win sometimes. I know I’ve gotten the math wrong, sometimes unwittingly, believing I could fit in more than I could. There have been times I’ve hidden behind my work, because work is easier to control than a hard conversation with someone you love. That’s part of the challenge of stewarding a calling, for all of us: you get it wrong sometimes. And part of stewarding that calling is sometimes taking down some chairs. We have more authority, and therefore, more responsibility than we think. We decide where the time goes. There’s so much freedom in that, and so much responsibility

There are people in this country who will argue that because of the demise of morals in general, and Sunday school in particular, kids today are losing their innocence before they should, that because of cartoons and Ken Starr and curricula about their classmates who have two mommies, youth learn too soon about sex and death. Well, like practically everyone else in the Western world who came of age since Gutenberg, I lost my innocence the old-time-religion way, by reading the nursery rhyme of fornication that is the Old Testament and the fairy tale bloodbath that is the New. Job taught me Hey! Life's not fair! Lot's wife taught me that I'm probably going to come across a few weird sleazy things I won't be able to resist looking into. And the book of Revelation taught me to live in the moment, if only because the future's so grim. Being a fundamentalist means going straight to the source. I was asked to not only read the Bible, but to memorize Bible verses. If it wasn't for the easy access to the sordid Word of God I might have had an innocent childhood. Instead, I was a worrywart before my time, shivering in constant fear of a god who, from what I could tell, huffed and puffed around the cosmos looking like my dad did when my sister refused to take her vitamins that one time. God wasn't exactly a children's rights advocate. The first thing a child reading the Bible notices is that you're supposed to honor your mother and father but they're not necessarily required to reciprocate. This was a god who told Abraham to knife his boy Isaac and then at the last minute, when the dagger's poised above Isaac's heart, God tells Abraham that He's just kidding. This was a god who let a child lose his birthright because of some screwball mix-up involving fake fur hands and a bowl of soup. This was a god who saw to it that his own son had his hands and feet nailed onto pieces of wood. God, for me, was not in the details. I still set store by the big Judeo-Christian messages. Who can argue with the Ten Commandments? Don't kill anybody: don't mess around with other people's spouses: be nice to your mom and dad. Fine advice. It was the minutiae that nagged me.

Hello, darling,” Alessandro smiled at her. Oh, that smile. Bree wanted to close her eyes, press her hands against her eyes and keep them shut forever so she wouldn’t see that smile. She must have had the question on her face, the knowledge on her face because as she looked at him now, something flickered in his eyes. Guilt. Oh God. “Mommy, look. I make good bouncies. See?” Will said, dribbling the ball. “I gonna be a basset ball player when I gwoed up.” The little boy’s voice sounded far away as Bree narrowed in on Alessandro and the look in his eyes. “Brian. I want you and Vanessa to take Will and Gianni out for a little while.” “Oh but we’re having a good time out here, aren’t we Gianni?” Alessandro asked, tickling Gianni who squealed and curled inward. “Now,” Bree said, her voice tight. Will stopped bouncing the ball and held it against his chest looking at both of them, picking up on the angry tension that suddenly covered them all. “Uh oh. I tink mommy’s mad.” “I’m not leaving you alone in your condition, Bree. Alessandro, we just came from the hospital. Colin’s awake,” Brian informed him, his voice tight with anger. “You spoke to Colin?” Alessandro asked, meeting Bree’s eyes. “I did. And Carrie.” He looks like a cornered animal. And what do Dardanos do when they’re cornered? They lie. They cheat. Oh God. “Fine, then can you just take the boys upstairs?” Bree said, speaking to Brian, but not moving her gaze from her husband. “Come on, guys. Let’s go play upstairs for a while,” Vanessa said walking past Bree and taking Gianni from Alessandro’s lap.

We end up at an outdoor paintball course in Jersey. A woodsy, rural kind of place that’s probably brimming with mosquitos and Lyme disease. When I find out Logan has never played paintball before, I sign us both up. There’s really no other option. And our timing is perfect—they’re just about to start a new battle. The worker gathers all the players in a field and divides us into two teams, handing out thin blue and yellow vests to distinguish friend from foe. Since Logan and I are the oldest players, we both become the team captains. The wide-eyed little faces of Logan’s squad follow him as he marches back and forth in front of them, lecturing like a hot, modern-day Winston Churchill. “We’ll fight them from the hills, we’ll fight them in the trees. We’ll hunker down in the river and take them out, sniper-style. Save your ammo—fire only when you see the whites of their eyes. Use your heads.” I turn to my own ragtag crew. “Use your hearts. We’ll give them everything we’ve got—leave it all on the field. You know what wins battles? Desire! Guts! Today, we’ll all be frigging Rudy!” A blond boy whispers to his friend, “Who’s Rudy?” The kid shrugs. And another raises his hand. “Can we start now? It’s my birthday and I really want to have cake.” “It’s my birthday too.” I give him a high-five. “Twinning!” I raise my gun. “And yes, birthday cake will be our spoils of war! Here’s how it’s gonna go.” I point to the giant on the other side of the field. “You see him, the big guy? We converge on him first. Work together to take him down. Cut off the head,” I slice my finger across my neck like I’m beheading myself, “and the old dog dies.” A skinny kid in glasses makes a grossed-out face. “Why would you kill a dog? Why would you cut its head off?” And a little girl in braids squeaks, “Mommy! Mommy, I don’t want to play anymore.” “No,” I try, “that’s not what I—” But she’s already running into her mom’s arms. The woman picks her up—glaring at me like I’m a demon—and carries her away. “Darn.” Then a soft voice whispers right against my ear. “They’re already going AWOL on you, lass? You’re fucked.” I turn to face the bold, tough Wessconian . . . and he’s so close, I can feel the heat from his hard body, see the small sprigs of stubble on that perfect, gorgeous jaw. My brain stutters, but I find the resolve to tease him. “Dear God, Logan, are you smiling? Careful—you might pull a muscle in your face.” And then Logan does something that melts my insides and turns my knees to quivery goo. He laughs. And it’s beautiful. It’s a crime he doesn’t do it more often. Or maybe a blessing. Because Logan St. James is a sexy, stunning man on any given day. But when he laughs? He’s heart-stopping. He swaggers confidently back to his side and I sneer at his retreating form. The uniformed paintball worker blows a whistle and explains the rules. We get seven minutes to hide first. I cock my paintball shotgun with one hand—like Charlize Theron in Fury fucking Road—and lead my team into the wilderness. “Come on, children. Let’s go be heroes.” It was a massacre. We never stood a chance. In the end, we tried to rush them—overpower them—but we just ended up running into a hail of balls, getting our hearts and guts splattered with blue paint. But we tried—I think Rudy and Charlize would be proud

I want my mom,” a little boy cried out suddenly. Every voice fell silent. The boy had said what they were all feeling. Caine hopped down from the car and went to the boy. He knelt down and took the boy’s hands in his own. He asked the boy’s name, and reintroduced himself. “We all want our parents back,” he said gently, but loudly enough to be overheard clearly by those nearest. “We all want that. And I believe that will happen. I believe we will see all our moms and dads, and older brothers and sisters, and even our teachers again. I believe that. Do you believe it, too?” “Yes.” The little boy sobbed. Caine wrapped him in a hug and said, “Be strong. Be your mommy’s strong little boy.” “He’s good,” Astrid said. “He’s beyond good.” Then Caine stood up. People had formed a circle around him, close but respectful. “We all have to be strong. We all have to get through this. If we work together to choose good leaders and do the right thing, we will make it.” The entire crowd of kids seemed to stand a little taller. There were determined looks on faces that had been weary and frightened. Sam was mesmerized by the performance. In just a few minutes’ time, Caine had infused hope into a very frightened, dispirited bunch of kids. Astrid seemed mesmerized too, though Sam thought he detected the cool glint of skepticism in her eyes. Sam was skeptical himself. He distrusted rehearsed displays. He distrusted charm. But it was hard not to think that Caine was at least trying to reach out to the Perdido Beach kids. It was hard not to believe in him, at least a little. And if Caine really did have a plan, wouldn’t that be a good thing? No one else seemed to have a clue.

A loud clang of what sounded like a tray hitting the marble kitchen floor made Bree jump and Gianni go wide eyed with apparent terror. He covered his ears and shook his head. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” He fell over and covered his head. Bree rushed over to him as he began shrieking fearfully. “Maaammaaaaaa!” “Is okay, Gianni. Just a ting falled down,” Will said patting Gianni’s back but Bree noticed her little boy’s hand was shaking. “It’s okay, sweetie. Mommy’s here. That’s okay,” she crouched down and gathered Gianni into her arms. “Bang! Mama. It bang!” he wailed into her shoulder, trembling in her arms. “It was just a loud noise. Cook just dropped something, probably a whole big plate of yucky beets. Isn’t that funny?” she said, forcing a laugh. Jesus Christ, how much more violence would her children be forced to endure? Again, Bree felt selfish for bringing her innocent babies into the Dardano world. Gianni looked up at her, picking up on her tone he gave a small watery smile. “Ucky ee “Yucky yucky beets,” Bree repeated bouncing him lightly as her heart returned to its normal rhythm in her chest. Gianni giggled and shuddered against her as the last remnants of his fear dissipated. Bree looked over at Will. “You okay, sweetie?” Will blinked and looked over at her, wide eyed and his lower lip quivered, but he set his chin like she knew he’d watched Alessandro do and nodded. “I bwave. I nod scared.” Bree smiled at him and kissed his cheek as she ran her fingers through his hair. “Wow. That is pretty brave. I know I was scared when I first heard the noise.” “Really?” Will asked hesitantly. “Definitely,” Bree nodded. Gianni echoed the gesture. “Well, dat’s diffen. You’s a girl.” “Oh, is that so?” Bree asked setting Gianni on the blanket next to her. “So you think ’cause mommy’s a girl she’s a fraidy cat. Huh? Huh?” she asked poking him. Will curled in on himself and giggled as he tried to avoid her fingers.

Alexander has nearly completely forgotten what it’s like to play, except when he’s in the water, but there had been no water in Texas, barely any in New Mexico, and now they’re in Arid Zona. Anthony tries land games with his father. He perches on Alexander’s lap, holds the tips of his index fingers together, and says, “Daddy, want to see how strong I am? Hold my fingers in your fist, and I’ll get free.” Alexander stubs out his cigarette. He holds Anthony’s fingers lightly, and the boy wriggles free. The delight of freeing himself from his daunting father is so great that he wants to play the game again and again. They play it two hundred times. And then the reverse. Alexander holds his index fingers together while Anthony clenches his tiny four-year-old fist over them. When Alexander is unable to get free, Anthony’s joy is something to behold. They play that two hundred times while Tatiana either prepares lunch or dinner, or washes or tidies, or just sits and watches them with a gladdening heart. Alexander takes Anthony off his knee and says in a throaty, nicotine-stained voice, “Tatia, want to play? Put your fingers into my fist and see if you can wriggle free. Come.” Not a muscle moves on his face, but her heart is no longer just gladdening. It’s quickening, it’s maddening. She knows she shouldn’t, Anthony is right there, but when Alexander calls, she comes. That’s just how it is. She perches on his lap and touches together the tips of her slightly trembling index fingers. She tries not to look into his face, just at her fingers, over which he now places his enormous fist, squeezes lightly, and says, “Go ahead, wriggle free.” Her whole body weakens. She tries, of course, to get free, but she knows this: while as a father Alexander plays one way with Anthony, as a husband, he plays the opposite way with her. She bites her lip to keep from making a single sound. “Come on, Mommy,” says the uncomprehending child by her side. “You can do it. I did it! Wriggle free.” “Yes, Tatiasha,” whispers Alexander, squeezing her fingers tighter, looking deep into her face as she sits on his lap. “Come on, wriggle free.” And she glimpses the smiling soul peeking out.

Just above Tommy’s face were the Maiden and the Troll, two of his oldest wall people. The troll lived in a cave deep in the woods. He was big (Tommy knew the troll was even bigger than his daddy, and if the troll told his daddy to sit down and shut up, he would in a second), and he looked scary, with his little eyes and crooked teeth like fangs, but he had a secret. The secret was that he wasn’t scary at all. He liked to read, and play chess by mail with a gnome from over by the closet wall, and he never killed anything. The troll was a good troll, but everyone judged him by his looks. And that, Tommy knew, was a mean thing to do, though everyone did it. The maiden was very beautiful. Even more beautiful than Tommy’s mommy. She had long blonde hair that fell in heavy curls to her waist, and big blue eyes, and she always smiled even though her family was poor. She came into the woods near the troll’s cave to get water from a spring, for her family. The spring bubbled out of Tommy’s wall right next to where his hand lay when he was asleep. Sometimes she only came and filled her jug and left. But other times she would sit awhile, and sing songs of love lost, and sailing ships, and the kings and queens of Elfland. And the troll, so hideous and so kind, would listen to her soft voice from the shadows just inside the entrance of his cave, which sat just below the shelf where Tommy kept his favorite toys and books. Tommy felt bad for the troll. He loved the maiden who came to his spring, but she would never love him. He knew from listening to his parents and the stuff they watched on television when he was supposed to be asleep that beautiful people didn’t love ugly people. Ugly people were either to laugh at or to be frightened of. That was how the whole world worked. Tommy rolled over on his side, just a small seven year old boy in tan cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt. He let his eyes drift over the bedroom wall, which was lumpy in some places and just gone in others. There was a part of the wall down near the floor where he could see the yellow light of the naked bulb down in the basement, and sometimes he wondered what might live down there. Nothing good, of that he was sure.

They went sledding. They rented two Flexible Flyers from the general store, and spent the afternoon with the rest of the villagers sledding on the steep Stonington hill that ran down to the bay. Anthony walked uphill exactly twice. Granted, it was a big hill, and he was brave and good to do it, but the other twenty times, his father carried him. Finally, Tatiana said, “You two go on without me. I can’t walk anymore.” “No, no, come with us,” said Anthony. “Dad, I’ll walk up the hill. Can you carry Mama?” “I think I might be able to carry Mommy,” said Alexander. Anthony trudged along, while Alexander carried Tatiana uphill on his back. She cried and the tears froze on her face. But then they raced down, Tatiana and Anthony on one sled, trying to beat Alexander, who was heavier than mother and son, and fast and maneuvered well, unhampered by fear for a small boy, unlike her. She flew down anyway, with Anthony shrieking with frightened delight. She almost beat Alexander. At the bottom she collided into him. “You know if I didn’t have Ant, you’d never win,” she said, lying on top of him. “Oh, yes, I would,” he said, pushing her off him into the snow. “Give me Ant, and let’s go.” It was a good day.

It starts with my mother….Boys get fucked up by their fathers, right? That’s why so many tales are really Daddy Issue stories at their core, because men run the world, and men get to tell their stories first. If women told most of the stories, though, then all the best stories would be about Mommy Problems.

You do look different, Mordred. I know. You're not hiding behind Mommy's skirt! That must be it! I'm surprised she let you out to play finally, to be honest. It's got to be way past your bedtime, old boy.

I WAS JUST SITTING DOWN TO DINNER THAT NIGHT WHEN MY cell phone began to chime. It was leftover night, which was not a bad thing at our house, since it allowed me to sample two or three of Rita’s tasty concoctions at one sitting, and I stared at the phone for several seconds and thought very hard about the last piece of Rita’s Tropical Chicken sitting there on the platter before I finally picked up my phone and answered. “It’s me,” Deborah said. “I need a favor.” “Of course you do,” I said, looking at Cody as he pulled a large helping of Thai noodles out of the serving dish. “But does it have to be right now?” Debs made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a grunt. “Ow. Yeah, it does. Can you pick up Nicholas from day care?” she said. Her son, Nicholas, was enrolled at a Montessori day-care center in the Gables, although I was reasonably sure he was too young to count beads. I had wondered whether I should be doing the same for Lily Anne, but Rita had pooh-poohed the idea. She said it was a waste of money until a child was two or three years old. For Deborah, though, nothing was too good for her little boy, so she cheerfully shelled out the hefty fee for the school. And she had never been late to pick him up, no matter how pressing her workload—but here it was, almost seven o’clock, and Nicholas was still waiting for Mommy. Clearly something unusual was afoot, and her voice sounded strained—not angry and tense as it had been earlier, but not quite right, either. “Um, sure, I guess I can get him,” I said. “What’s up with you?” She made the hiss-grunt sound again and said, “Uhnk. Damn it,” in a kind of hoarse mutter, before going on in a more normal voice, “I’m in the hospital.” “What?” I said. “Why, what’s wrong?” I had an alarming vision of her as I had seen her in her last visit to the hospital, an ER trip that had lasted for several days as she lay near death from a knife wound. “It’s no big deal,” she said, and there was strain in her voice, as well as fatigue. “It’s just a broken arm. I just … I’m going to be here for a while and I can’t get Nicholas in time.

Around Christmas season 1955, they forgot to lock their bedroom door and Anthony opened it late one night. He came in perhaps because of a nightmare, perhaps because the Christmas music was too loud on their radio, and so while “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” played on, twelve-year-old Anthony saw his naked mother underneath his upraised naked father, he saw gripped legs and small white hands clutching large arms, and he saw unspeakable motion, and he heard his mother making noises as if she were in pain but yet not in pain. He made a noise himself, and Alexander, without even turning around, stopped moving, lay down on top of Tatiana to cover her, and said, “Anthony—” The boy was out, vanished, the door open wide. They tried to imagine the things he may have seen. They tried to feel grateful for the other—completely unexplainable—things that he could have seen and blessedly had not. “Should we build a house now?” Alexander asked. “Why?” Tatiana said. “You can leave the door unlocked in a brand new house just as well as in our mobile home. But now you better go talk to your son, Shura.” “Oh suddenly it’s a mobile home, not a trailer—and what am I supposed to say to him?” “I don’t know, Alexander Barrington, but you’re going to have to think of something, or do you want me to talk to him the way your mother talked to you?” “All right, let’s just take one small step back toward reality,” said Alexander. “My family and I were living in a communal apartment where the man in the next room kept bringing in whores he picked up at the train station. My mother had a responsibility. She was trying to scare me off with nightmarish stories of French disease. I don’t need to scare my boy off; I think what he’s seen tonight will put him off sex for life.

a child is being beaten, children are beaten"—a typical group fantasy where desire invests the social field and its repressive forms. If there is a mise en scene, it is directed by a social desiring-machine whose product should not be considered abstractly, separating the girl's and the boy's cases, as if each were a little ego taking up its own business with daddy and mommy. On the contrary, we should consider the complementary ensemble made up of boy-girl and parents-agents of production and antiproduction, this ensemble being present at the same time in each individual and in the socius that presides over the organization of the group fantasy. Simultaneously the boys are beaten-initiated by the teacher on the little girl's erotic stage (seeing-machine), and obtain satisfaction in a masochistic fantasy involving the mother (anal machine). The result is that the boys are able to see only by becoming little girls, and the girls cannot experience the pleasure of punishment except by becoming boys. It is a whole chorus, a montage: back in the village after a raid in Vietnam, in the presence of their weeping sisters, the filthy Marines are beaten by their instructor, on whose knees the mommy is seated, and they have orgasms for having been so evil, for having tortured so well. It's so bad, but also so good!

I’d save my mommy issues for my mid-life crisis.

My experience of a relationship is two people more or less compulsively playing musical chairs with each other's selected inner archetypes. My tough street kid is romancing your honky-tonk angel. I am your homeless waif and you are my loving mother. I am your lost father and you are my doting daughter. I am your worshiper and you are my goddess. I am your god and you are my priestess. I am your client and you are my analyst. I am your intensity and you are my ground. These are some of the more garish of the patterns. Animus, anima, bopping on a seesaw. These hold up well enough while the archetypal pairings behave. But when the little boy inside him is looking for the mommy inside her and finds instead on this particular night a sharp-toothed analyst dissecting his guts. When the little girl inside her is looking for the daddy inside him, and finds instead a pagan worshiper who wants a goddess to lay with, which induces her to become a little girl playacting a goddess to please the daddy who's really a lecherous worshiper... Or [like when] a woman is attracted to a macho-man who is secretly looking to be mothered.

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more difficult. “Go now?” Hadley turned serious blue eyes to Daphne. “See my baby?” Rick and his wife, Desiree, had recently had a baby boy, Aaron, and Hadley was madly in love with him. “Not yet, chickadee. Mommy

Soren is like a mini- Saint in the making. He’s loud, demanding, and completely obsessed with his mommy.

I- Karly takes their fingers in me when I masturbate, just thought you would like to know. Jenny and boy, we-we’s she takes them all, sometimes she has two going in the same whole, two boys in there rubbing their crap seem guy to me even if it’s a three-way. Maybe… all of this is not what I wanted to be remembered for. I guess what I am saying is, I wanted to be remembered for how I have- ‘Fallen to You!’ However, before I kicked the bucket… I did think of Ray, or anyone- or another boy. No one is other than my selfish self. The clueless girl I was, living for the now, and not the happily ever after! Hell no…! I did not think about that. I did not think about all the dangerous, shocking, and even offensive things I have done with my friends. I did not even think about my family, like if they would even care about me being or not being around. Nope, I was too busy sucking off chill dogs and running around silly doing honorable things. I did not even think about my adorable girly bedroom, and how the sun shined silky waves of light, in the window. Besides, how it woke me up as my days started. I did not think about the soft and cozy things in that room either, or the selfie photograph of me, and Ray kissing sitting on my night table. I did not think about how you can smell the rain rolling in on a spring day, as the window was open, or feel the chill in the air as I stood by it in the middle of December. ‘Oh, let the sun beat down on my face, and let the sounds caress my ears, I have been blind!’ I do not think about all the smells and feelings of food and family coming from down the steps or in the home at all. I completely ignored everything and it all just to be the cool girl. Instead, I thought of Jenny and Maddie back in the third grade how we used to play kickball and miss in our gym class. I also thought about that girl that no one liked too that no one wanted on the team including me. I think her name was Madilyn, I remember this because I was the last one to pick, and she looked so sad and I did not say anything as she sat crying in the grass picking yellow dandelions the whole class. I was such an ass for my friends. I guess that guilt gets you at some point. I member how they and I said she was too weird and disgusting to play with us, and that she could not see what she was doing, because of her blue-eyed four- eyes. Meaning her glass on the fragile flushed face. I guess I get to be friends with these girls because they were what I wanted to be. I was not always friends with them I remember from second grade and back. Yes, I was just like her before, I joined their team. I would have done anything to be one of them, which is what I did. ‘Look at the little freak over there sitting’ Jenny said, and we all giggled. ‘Let’s kick our balls in her face, so she runs off crying for her mommy again like before.’ And that is what we all did; the goal was to break her glass of her face. ‘Like she is not even going to try to move said Maddie.’ BAM smack one! BAM smack two…! Me- direct hit- BAM! Furthermore, she goes running away just the way we wanted! Jenny always found a way of making us snicker at the dumbest crap, like that. I- we- never forget that girl’s face! Red with pain, and dripping with her tears, dandelions in hand that she picked for us. Just so, we would like her! That all faded away from me. Just like the furry white ball of seeds that blows away as she rains inside. I can’t believe that is what, I remembered! This was more my beforehand death instant when I was theoretic Madilyn meant to be having some kind of vast revelation about my past. My moment froze like in time to the recollections of the slight of nail polish, and the squeak of my white dollar store flats as I walked on the waxed high school floor. The tightness of my skinny blue jeans, with one of my lacey junior’s nine-dollar Walmart thongs.

Part: 1 July This one more of how where I remember these days. Photos online, and cam videos all that are my memories- of me to others. Part: 2 August Compare… them then and now- naked slut girl or 1940s modesty. I remember having the old photo album spread out on the bedroom floor. Oh! Wow! Look at this one… do you like how she was remembered better than me? (Photo) Part: 3 It's- September More of the same- I have become a cam-whore!!! Nothing more… Part: 4 OCTOBER …And yah- a, ah- pics that would make you blush, and hard, you boys would love to see me, now, wouldn’t you? Part: 5 NOVEMBER Making cummie videos is my life. Part: 6 DECEMBER Coming 7 hours out of the day is taking time away from other things. Part: 7 WAKING UP …After fraping till- I passed out all hot gross and sweaty, I did not remember falling asleep- with mom and dad- sis and the world seeing me as my door to my trashed bedroom- all jammed open- and’s- and’s- AND’S- did not care at this point. (SAY IT WITH exhausted SLURRING.) JANUARY yet how- ga-gives- a ________. Ef… E- un- mm- ah- in-n… Whatever… I am making 50 G’s in a night… so that makes it okay. (A photo of me lying in bed with all this money!) Part: 8 TIME PASSES Craziness… look at my life here… all board… ‘I am home,’ I mumbled, confused- not even more. ‘What did I do?’ I felt my face wrinkle. It was so unfair. My behavior… here is wow… After that first week… of doing this… How do I look… which neither of us ever mentioned what we do? I hadn't missed a day of school or work. My grades were perfect. Yet this show is all going to shit- no? This is what I did here… showing everything that makes me a girl! Now I am passing down- to her- yah me- is it wrong? I must live with it. #- A cam video and all these photos of her online now are worth 1,000 words! #-0-okay then what does this one says then? My little sis- and she is frapping harder than I do- in this- damn, she is my Minnie me! She started younger than me even- yet that is all girls, her age. Here is one with her dressed wow seem weird to see her with something on anymore- (Swipe- and the phone in your hand would make a click sound…) Oh, this one- She loves these beautiful white lace kid’s girls’ shorts- so girlie- girly- from Wal-Mart, yet she was banned from wearing them in school without anything under them, yet I look around and all other girls do it. Yet, on Facebook- and Instagram 1, you get one persona and on Google images a whole other- just like Snapchat you have her as your girlfriend for the night yet have- yet she is your striptease only- and the other Instagram- that grammar should never- ever see- yet this is how to get popular- and stay popular. Besides then there is the community of internet nudists- on MFC. And the profile- she now has too, a legacy to be remembered by, no? Yet, when you have no education to speak of and working for some d*ck head is just out of the question, over they think you’re not worthy of their time- were you're not making anything, and at this point in Pa she too young to work, yet is old enough to have unprotected sex… Um- and then I wonder- yet she needs the money- for school coming up because your mommy and daddy don’t have it, and all for fun, boys, and a girl's night of fun- and partying- and being crazy. Money is everything… and why girls do what they must do…

He did seem like a nice boy.' Seeming and being are two different things. You seem nice, too, Mommy dearest.

No one ever warns you that when you have boys, you’ll go from mama, to mommy, to mom, to... bruh.

a little boy with a disease who asked his mother, “What is it like to die? Does it hurt?” The mother thought for a minute, then said, “Do you remember when you were smaller, and you played very hard and fell asleep on your mommy’s bed? You awoke to find yourself somehow in your own bed?” The boy nodded. “Your daddy had come along, with his big, strong arms and lifted you, undressed you, put you into your pajamas as you slept. Honey, that’s what death is like. It’s waking up in your own room.”7 So let the future come.

Okay, champ. Off to the hospital we go.” Willa slides her hand around my back. “I got him from here, boys. The girls have Luke. I think he’s in heaven with two blondes paying attention to him.” “Talk about mommy issues,” Rhett jokes to a chorus of groans. Leave it to him to say something inappropriate right now.

Oh no.” Julie clicked her tongue. “Did the mean human girl pick on you? Does the little bouda boy want his mommy?” “Untie me!” “Awww, the little baby is crying. Boohoo. Does the baby need his bottle and his teddy?

But this guy? He looked like a piñata full of crazy ex-girlfriends, rich-boy fetishes, and mommy issues.

The grown-ups went back to talking. After a while, Christabel slid out from under Mommy’s arm and went to look for something warm. She wasn’t strong enough to pull the cover off either of the beds, so she got two big towels out of the bathroom and wrapped one around Mister Sellars’ narrow shoulders. She draped the other one over the little boy, pulling it up like a blanket to just below his chin, so it looked like he really was just having a nap on her mother’s lap. “Don’t be scared,” she whispered into his ear. She patted his arm, then leaned close again. “I’m here,” she told him so quietly that even Mommy couldn’t hear her. “So please don’t be scared.

Ignore Jiggie. Come, Ryker.” Ryker listens and positions himself behind me. He pushes me against Hazen’s chest, and I press my palms onto him to catch myself. After a moment, I feel lube right against my ass. “I think it’s numbing lube,” Hazen mutters. “Sometimes, the pain is good. How are you doing, pretty boy?” My fingers tangle into his mohawk. His full lips curl into a smirk. “You’re embarrassing me, Mom,” he teases. “It’s mommy to you.” I wink back, capturing his lips as Ryker’s tip slides in and out of my ass.

It wasn’t okay. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t care if Jesus wanted her or not. She was my mommy. He could take an old mommy. One that didn’t have little boys to take care of.

When the last of the dishes were put up, the floor swept, the Open sign turned off and the door latched, Preacher trudged slowly up the stairs to his old room. When he got there he found Christopher was jumping on the bed while beside it Paige stood holding his pajama top, trying to get him to settle down after his bath. She threw a look over her shoulder with a wan smile that said she was coming to the end of her rope. After all, she’d been trapped in the plane and car with him much of the day. “Okay, cowboy,” Preacher said, coming forward. He took the top out of Paige’s hands and held it for the boy. Christopher slipped his arms in and turned around so that Preacher could snap it up the back. “That a boy,” he said. Paige put a hand on Preacher’s forearm and said, “Please tuck in the cowboy and I’ll meet you downstairs.” Christopher lunged at Preacher, jumping on him, arms around his neck and legs around his waist, hugging him tight. “Wanna kiss Mommy good-night?” Preacher asked. Christopher leaned around Preacher a little, puckering, but didn’t let go. He got his kiss and Paige left them alone. “In you go,” Preacher said. “Read,” he said. “Aw, c’mon. It’s been a long day.” “Read,” he said. “One page.” “Okay, one page.” Preacher sat on the bed beside him and accepted the book. He read three pages. “Now you have to settle down.” He started whining and wiggling around. “Did someone give you sugar?” Preacher asked him. “Get into bed. Enough of this.” He tucked the covers around him and kissed his head. “See you happy in the morning.” “G’night,” Christopher said, snuggling down in the bed. When

My little man,” she said. “No.” She stretched out her hand to him. “Come.” “I can’t,” he said. “Sam, I’m your mother. I love you. Come with me.” “Mom…” “Just reach out to me. I’m safe. I can carry you away, out of this place.” Sam shook his head slowly, slowly, like he was drowning in molasses. Something was happening to time. Astrid wasn’t breathing. Nothing was moving. The whole world was frozen. “It will be like it was,” his mother said. “It was never…,” he began. “You lied to me. You never told me…” “I never lied,” she said, and frowned at him, disappointed. “You never told me I had a brother. You never told—” “Just come with me,” she said, impatient now, jerking her hand a little like she would when he was a little kid and refused to take her hand to cross the street. “Come with me now, Sam. You’ll be safe and out of this place.” He reacted instinctively, the little boy again, reacted to the “mommy” voice, the “obey me” voice. He reached for her, stretched his hand out to her. And pulled it back. “I can’t,” Sam whispered. “I have someone I have to stay here for.” Anger flashed in his mother’s eyes, a green light, surreal, before she blinked and it was gone. And then, out of the bleached, unreal world, Caine stepped into the eerie light. Sam’s mother smiled at Caine, and he stared at her wonderingly. “Nurse Temple,” Caine said. “Mom,” she corrected. “It’s time for both my boys to join me, to come away with me. Out of this place.” Caine seemed spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from the gentle, smiling face, the piercing blue eyes. “Why?” Caine asked in a small child’s voice. Their mother said nothing. Once again, for just a heartbeat, her blue eyes glowed a toxic green before returning to cool, icy blue. “Why him and not me?” Caine asked. “It’s time to come with me now,” their mother insisted. “We’ll be a family. Far from here.” “You first, Sam,” Caine said. “Go with your mother.” “No,” Sam said. Caine’s face darkened with rage. “Go, Sam. Go. Go. Go with her.” He was shouting now. He seemed to want to grab Sam physically, push him toward the mother they had not quite shared, but his movements were odd, disjointed, a jerky stick figure in a dream. Caine gave up trying. “Jack told you,” he said dully. “No one told me anything,” Sam said. “I have things I have to do here.” Their mother extended her arms to them, angry, demanding to be heeded. “Come to me. Come to me.” Caine shook his head slowly. “No.” “But you’re the man of the house now, Sam,” his mother wheedled. “My little man. Mine.” “No,” Sam said. “I’m my own man.” “And I was never yours,” Caine sneered. “Too late now, Mother.” The face of their mother wavered. The tender flesh seemed to break apart in jigsaw-puzzle pieces. The gently smiling, pleading mouth melted, collapsed inward. In its place a mouth ringed with needle-sharp teeth. Eyes filled with green fire. “I’ll have you yet,” the monster raged with sudden violence. Caine stared in horror. “What are you?” “What am I?” the monster mocked him savagely. “I’m your future. You’ll come to me on your own in the dark place, Caine. You will come willingly to me.

On the way home from the store the girl said she's afraid to fly over the ocean for our impending Europe trip. I said, "Honey, your chances are much better of getting killed in a car crash than a plane crash." She looked around the car and started crying, and the boy said, "Really, mom? That was the best you could do?" Consoling mommy: fail.

spend more time comforting and hugging infant girls and more time watching infant boys play by themselves.22 Other cultural messages are more blatant. Gymboree once sold onesies proclaiming “Smart like Daddy” for boys and “Pretty like Mommy” for girls.23 The same year, J. C. Penney marketed a T-shirt to teenage girls that bragged, “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.”24 These things did not happen in 1951. They happened in 2011. Even worse, the messages sent to girls can move beyond encouraging superficial traits and veer into explicitly discouraging leadership. When a girl tries to lead, she is often labeled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of a boss does not surprise or offend. As someone who was called this for much of my childhood, I know that it is not a compliment. The stories of my childhood bossiness are told (and retold) with great amusement. Apparently, when I was in elementary school, I taught my younger siblings, David and Michelle, to follow me around, listen to my monologues, and scream the word “Right!” when I concluded. I was the eldest of the neighborhood children and allegedly spent my time organizing shows that I could direct and clubs that I could run. People laugh at these accounts, but to this day I always feel slightly ashamed of my behavior

Oh Mary Sue, she is the most popular girl in the whole entire school. You know, the captain of the cheerleaders, always looks great, I just can’t stop thinking about her. I don’t know if she would ever go for a guy like me, I mean my mommy still picks out my clothes every now and then, and then I walk downstairs to leave and my papa says, “You will never meet anyone looking like that.” I never knew what he was talking about, mommy always picked out the best. She always argued, “You leave him alone, he looks great. You go get that girl. .” So I decided that day it was my time. So last week I decided to pull up my big boy pants and go get my Mary Sue. I walked right up to her and I told her how I felt, you are my soul mate, my life. She looked at me a little funny, and then her boyfriend said, “What are you talking about you little four eyed freak.” In Which I did not get because I only have the two eyes. I don’t think he is very smart. So I looked him right in his two eyes and said, “I am here to claim my love, my girl.” And that is the last thing I remember. I did not get the girl, but the ambulance ride was very comfortable to the hospital.

I never understood why God would climb into these people with such fervor, until I became a grown man myself and came to understand the nature and power of God’s many blessings, but even as a boy I knew God was all-powerful because of Mommy’s utter deference to Him, and also because she would occasionally do something in church that I never saw her do at home or anywhere else: at some point in the service, usually when the congregation was singing one of her favorite songs, like “We’ve Come This Far by Faith” or “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” she would bow down her head and weep. It was the only time I ever saw her cry. “Why do you cry in church?” I asked her one afternoon after service. “Because God makes me happy.” “Then why cry?” “I’m crying ‘cause I’m happy. Anything wrong with that?” “No,” I said, but there was, because happy people did not seem to cry like she did. Mommy’s tears seemed to come from somewhere else, a place far away, a place inside her that she never let any of us children visit, and even as a boy I felt there was pain behind them. I thought it was because she wanted to be black like everyone else in church, because maybe God liked black people better, and one afternoon on the way home from church I asked her whether God was black or white. A deep sigh. “Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.” “Does he like black or white people better?” “He loves all people. He’s a spirit.” “What’s a spirit?” “A spirit’s a spirit.” “What color is God’s spirit?” “It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.

Mommy and Daddy might have split up, but their child had bounced back without any ill effect. Lucky girl. It was Lily who was left with the nightmares.

At almost three, I was the baby girl, a waif, blond sprouting in competing directions from my scalp. My nose was wider at the bridge than both my sisters’, a source of embarrassment for my father, who, I would later find out, favored the Nordic look in the women he loved. My nose wasn’t the only way I disappointed him. After two daughters, he’d been counting on a son, a male successor to be named Carl. When I was born, he and Mommy simply added a y to the word, like an accusing chromosome: Carly. My

It’s not that simple, Win.” “It is that simple, my friend. The fact that you insipidly choose to confuse the issue does not change the fact. I’ll demonstrate, if you’d like.” “I’m listening.” “You love your father, correct?” “You know the answer to that.” “I do,” Win said. “But what makes him your father? The fact that he once grunted on top of Mommy after a few drinks—or the way he has cared for you and loved you for the past thirty-five years?” Myron looked down at the can of Yoo-Hoo. “You owe this boy nothing,” Win continued, “and equally important, he owes you nothing. We will try to save his life, if that is what you wish, but that should be where it ends.” Myron thought about it. The only thing scarier than Win irrational was when Win made sense. “Maybe you’re right.” “But you still don’t think it’s that simple.” “I don’t know.” On the television, Archie approached the pulpit, a yarmulke on his head. “It’s a start,” Win said.

My niece, Anna, told about a poignant moment with her eight-year-old daughter. I love myself but I hate my thighs. I do. I also hate my post-baby, three-times-C-sectioned tummy. No matter how many planks, sit-ups, or miles I run, it will never be like it was when I was in college. And that makes me sad, frustrated, and sometimes angry. When my sweet husband tells me I look beautiful, instead of just thanking him, I answer back with a caveat: “Thanks, but I look fat.” I do this in front of my kids sometimes without realizing it. My boys always come back with, “No way, Mom. You look awesome” or “We think you’re beautiful!” But my daughter is just quiet. Watching. Listening. Later she’ll come up to me, hug me, and whisper, “I love you so much, Mommy.” A couple of months ago, when she was all dressed up, I saw her looking at herself in the mirror. I stopped and said, “Lillian, you look absolutely stunning!” She turned around and said to me very matter of fact, “No I don’t. I look fat.” I gasped! Doesn’t she know how precious she is? Doesn’t she know how beautiful she is? What a blessing she is? Doesn’t she know what a miracle her very existence is? And then I remembered all the times I answered her dad with the very same words. I was sad, ashamed, and most of all heartbroken. Lillian was eight years old. She understood that “fat” was how I felt about myself, so she decided she should feel that way too. Lillian and I had a long talk that day. I told her what a blessing her life is, and how God made her special, unique, and beautiful. I also apologized to her, my two sons, and my husband for not loving myself like I should. Lately, I’ve been saying “thank you” when I get compliments—something new to me—and it’s made all the difference. Now when I tell Lillian how gorgeous she is (which is all the time), she looks at me with her bright hazel eyes and says, “Thanks, Mommy! I think you’re really beautiful too!

Her face distressed, Astrid handed him off to Zarek. "Menoeceus wants his father." Zarek glared at her. "Bob is crying because he wants his mother to stop calling him that crap-ass name." Zarek cuddled the small boy to him as he rocked him gently against his shoulder while he continued to wail. Loudly. "It's all right, Bob. Daddy's got you now. I'm saving you from Mommy's bad naming taste. I'd be crying, too, if my mom named me after an idiot." "Menoeceus is a great name," Astrid said defensively. Zarek snorted. "For an old man or a feminine hygiene product. Not for my son. And next time I get to name the kid and it won't be something that sounds like meningitis." Astrid stood with her hands on her hips, toe to toe with her husband. "You keep that up and next time you'll be the one birthing it, and don't mess with me, bucko, I have connections in that department. A pregnant man is not an impossibility in my neighborhood." She started away from him. "Yeah, well, I'll be glad to birth it if it means I can name him something normal," Zarek called after her.

You know what my tito Jose told me, Mommy?” my little chatterbox asks again, unable to sit in silence for long. “He told me when I get older, if any boys try to talk to me, all da boys in my family were gonna dig the holes six feet under. I want to help them dig the holes too, Mommy.” I scowl. Looks like I’ll need to have a talk with Jose about what he says in front of Camilla. She’s a sponge this one. “Oh no. You don’t need to dig any holes. That’s for sure.” She shrugs. “You know what else my—” Jesus. My sweet girl could talk for days.

Even though there was not a shadow of doubt that my boy was an Aspie, we never pushed to get a formal diagnosis. He already had an IEP in place, so I figured, why bother? As long as he was getting the help, the modifications and the tools he needed to succeed, I didn’t care about the diagnosis. Then Jay entered 3rd grade, and well, that way of thinking changed. That year the other children started to notice Jay’s quirky behaviors and uncontrollable emotional outbursts. But even more importantly, Jay was starting to notice. He was not sleeping at night, his anxiety level was at an all-time high and his self-confidence was dangerously low. One day, in the middle of a meltdown, my boy blurted out, “I feel like I am a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, and no matter how hard I try to make myself fit, I can’t do it. Why am I like this, Mommy?” My heart broke for my son. Not believing was no longer an option. We took him to be officially diagnosed.

I didn’t see the connection between my wife working and the boy being distracted, but the teacher prescribed “stay-at-home mommy” at least for the first half of elementary school, and my wife took a break from work.

feel I have to comment on the comic relief of these flabby old men who fashion themselves the master race. They may not be fine physical specimens, but they’re not fine intellectual specimens either. Nor were they able to rally a good counter rally. But I’m sure your mommies thought you were handsome little boys.

I wrote an article for The Women's Earth recently. I described a school I worked in where I gave all the children a potted spider plant and told them to look after it for a week like a daddy or mommy looks after a baby. Each child chose which parent they were going to emulate. This lovely little Jamaican boy, Winston, chose his daddy. The next week his mother phoned and asked why I'd asked Winston to feed his plant Pepsi and put it in front of the television.

When my dad has a day off, he cooks Korean food. It’s not exactly authentic, and sometimes he just goes to the Korean market and buys ready-made side dishes and marinated meat, but sometimes he’ll call our grandma for a recipe and he’ll try. That’s the thing: Daddy tries. He doesn’t say so, but I know it’s because he doesn’t want us to lose our connection to our Korean side, and food is the only way he knows how to contribute. After Mommy died, he used to try to make us have play dates with other Korean kids, but it always felt awkward and forced. Except I did have a crush on Edward

My father was also a horror movie buff. Old school horror movies. He said he didn’t have the time or patience for pretty boy douchebags who had mommy issues.