A few gentle knocks at the door and he knew his mum was okay.
“You better get ready,” she said to him when he opened the door a crack. She smiled at him quickly with crooked, yellow teeth, and gathered a robe over her frail body, her chest bones protruding like prison bars. “It’s your birthday and I haven’t forgotten what I promised you.”
Her voice cracked over the last words and she quickly hurried away, shoulders slumped, head down.
Soon the two of them were fully dressed and trudging through the snow, heading to the bus stop. The boy couldn’t help but smile at everyone and everything they passed: the scary people who slept on the street and talked to themselves, the dogs that shivered and ran away, the rats that feasted on dead things on the side of the road. None of that mattered to the boy because the world seemed bright and pure and all for him. He kicked at the snow and watched it fall to the ground and told his mum that this must be what heaven was like, walking in the clouds all day long.
She wiped away a mascara-stained tear and agreed.
The bus ride took a long time, but eventually they found themselves at one of the large concrete shopping centers. This was the boy’s big moment, what he’d been looking forward to for a year.
He didn’t even notice the odd looks that he and his mother sometimes got; he was so focused on that toy that the whole world seemed to slip away. Despite the bump at the back of his head, his cheek that was swollen and slowly growing purple, this was the happiest day of his life.
“Now we don’t have much time,” his mother said. “So hurry and pick out your present and I’ll pay for it.”
The boy heard the urgency in her voice and suddenly he was so overwhelmed. There were action figures, superheroes, cars and trucks, horses, dolls, stuffed animals, building sets, art supplies and Lego, and a million other things he wanted. He stood there, completely dumbfounded, and looked around and around, his heart thumping in his chest.
“Please,” his mother said again. She was at the cashier, ready to pay. He was suddenly so afraid that if he didn’t pick something right that second he wouldn’t get anything at all. At the same time, he was old enough to know that they didn’t have much money, so anything fancy and expensive was too much.
Panicking, he headed toward the stuffed animals. They were all crammed into a box—giraffes, bears, dogs, cats. They all looked like they needed a home, and it broke his heart to think he could only take one of them.
But he had to make a choice. He was gravitating toward a stuffed puppy when he noticed a lion half-buried in the pile, only his sly feline eyes and furry yellow mane poking out. It was no place for such a majestic beast.
The boy plucked the lion from the animals, so soft and huggable in his arms, and ran over to his mother with it, hoping she hadn’t changed her mind.
She looked at the lion and smiled. He had done well.
After she paid, he hugged that lion with all his might. It felt so good to hold something, and it felt like the lion was holding him back, thanking him for the rescue.
“What is the lion’s name?” his mother asked quietly. There was so much sadness in her voice that it nearly broke the spell the boy was under, that dizzy spell of love.
“Lionel,” he said after thinking about it for a moment. “Lionel the lion. And I love him.”
“And you know he loves you, don’t you?” she said, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her faux-fur coat. It smeared her red lipstick. “Just as I love you.”
His mother didn’t tell him that she loved him all that often so he was surprised to hear it. It made his birthday that much better.
Soon they were back on the bus, but this time they weren’t headed back to the house. The roads were unfamiliar, and the city was slowly left behind them. The yards got bigger, the snow deeper.
“Where are we going?” he asked. “This isn’t the way home.”
“We’re going to see some friends of mine,” she said.
The boy didn’t like that. He hugged his lion tight to him. He didn’t like her friends.
She put her hand on his shoulder but wouldn’t look at him. They were the only people on the bus which made him feel even more alone.
“Don’t worry,” she said eventually. “They have boys your age there.”
That didn’t make him feel any better. He didn’t get along with other kids, whether they were his age or not. He was shy and often got picked on for being too quiet. That only made him sink more into himself, where it was always safe and comfortable.
Eventually the bus stopped by huge iron gates and a stone wall, and the mother grabbed his hand, holding her purse close to her as they shuffled out into the snow. The bus pulled away and the boy wished he could have stayed on it. They were in the hills, in the middle of nowhere, and even though his home was cold and dirty, it was still home.
The boy couldn’t read the sign on the wall so he asked his mother what it said.
“It says we are welcome,” she said, hurrying him along until they were standing in front of the gates. She pressed a buzzer on the intercom.
The boy stared through the iron bars at the giant mansion on the hill. He didn’t like it. Something about it, maybe the bars on the windows or the overgrown ivy, or the way it bared down on them, like a brick beast, ready to pounce. He was grateful at that moment to have a lion like Lionel, but it didn’t stop him from digging in his heels.
“Come on,” his mother hissed, yanking him forward until they were climbing up the stairs.