Jon Reskind: Little eddie_s mother

As they drove down onto the Golden Gate Bridge Eddie's breath caught in his throat as he was struck by the incredible beauty of San Francisco Bay in the early morning light. They drove over the bridge and through a tunnel painted like a rainbow, and Eddie felt like he was in the wonderland of Oz. California was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen.

Lily Granger lived in a small rustic cabin on a dirt road in the hills of Mill Valley. It was a simple three-room structure with a bathroom, built of redwood and situated in the middle of a grove of eucalyptus trees. The furniture was sparse. A rickety old oak table and chairs in the kitchen, with odds and ends of dishes and silverware picked up at garage sales, and in the living room was an old sofa covered with an Indian blanket to mask the tom upholstery. The rest of the living room furniture consisted of a number of pillows and cushions strewn about the hardwood floor. But the simple dwelling was filled with plants of all kinds, many of them suspended from the walls and ceilings by pretty macrame hangers that Lily herself had made. There were several paintings on the walls, none of them very good, but all of them done by friends. There was also a fireplace, but at the moment it was filled with old newspapers and cigarette butts.

Lily Granger was an exquisite woman of thirty four, with rich, seal-brown hair and skin tanned a full even bronze from the exposure to the warm rays of the California sun. She wore a white Mexican peasant blouse which revealed the sensual curves of her full, high breasts, and a pair of cut-off bluejeans shorts which accentuated the firm, lithe slenderness of her sun-browned legs.

When she had first left her husband, Albert, the sexually starved woman slept with many men in the free love culture of northern California… But she found the price of sexual freedom – the one night stands and emotional shallowness of the relationships – unbearably steep, and soon decided to abstain from sex completely. And although an acute dissatisfaction often gnawed at her, she relieved herself through masturbation and felt it was better than the remorse she had felt during her period of promiscuousness.

When the roar of a car engine approached along the dirt road leading to her cabin, Lily didn't hear it immediately. She was immersed in the delicate macrame choker she was working on and did not look up until the driver of the vehicle gunned the engine loudly and slowed to a stop parallel to the front porch. Then Lily looked up sharply, her fingers still at their work. Now who on earth is that? she thought irritably. The last thing I need now is visitors. Have to get rid of them, whoever it is, and the sooner the better. She was planning to sell her work at the Renaissance Fair, and she needed to work quickly because she could make enough money during the fair to last well into next spring.

Resolutely, Lily scraped back her chair and got to her feet. She strode to the door, swung it open, and started out. Then she froze, one foot out the door, and her eyes grew wide with disbelief.

It was Eddie, her son Eddie!

He stood there before her, looking imploringly into her eyes, holding his battered backpack in his right hand. It had been two years since she had seen him in the flesh, but he had sent her a picture of himself only a month before; Lily remembered at that time how she had marveled at how quickly he had grown into a handsome young man, how he had lost that little child look as his face took on a manly definition and his thin body filled out and became more muscular. But he was still Eddie, her little boy…

Mother and son hesitated a moment longer, then Lily took several steps toward Eddie, opening her arms. The boy rushed to his mother and hugged her tightly, feeling the soft, round warmth of her, knowing the scent of her hair and the wetness of her tears as she cried out her happiness at seeing him.

They held each other for a long moment, then she drew him back at arms length, her eyes searching his face. She still couldn't believe he was here, and her mind was full of questions about him now; the Renaissance Fair and her problems were completely forgotten. How had he gotten here? Why had he come? Where was his father?

"Honey," she managed to say, her throat thick with emotion. "Eddie, my little Eddie…"

"You're… you're glad to see me, Mom?" he whispered.

"Glad to see you! God, honey, you don't know how glad I really am! It's been two years now, two years…"

"I tried to get – him – to let me come visit you, or to let you come and see me in New York, but he wouldn't allow it; he said the courts didn't give you any… any visiting privileges and he was going to do just what they said… oh, Mommy, Mommy!" Eddie threw himself in his mother's arms again, pressing her softness tight against him, and Eddie could feel the firmness of her warm sensuous breasts against his chest. Lily blinked the tears from her eyes and then for the first time she was looking past her son, her eyes focusing on the car which had brought him and the two people standing beside it, patiently waiting and smiling. Lily didn't like the looks of them at all. They look like swingers, she thought disparagingly.

The mature blonde had struck a provocative pose by the luxury sedan, her eyes bright, her large full breasts thrust forward and her legs parted slightly. She was watching Eddie and his mother closely, it seemed to Lily, with that faintly predatory look often found in older wealthy women of a liberal bent. The blonde was certainly beautiful, Lily thought, sensual, but the type all too common out here who went to middle-class orgies in sumptuous homes with saunas and Japanese tubs. As for the man, well, he was handsome enough, but she wouldn't trust him alone with his own grandmother.

Lily turned her attention back to her young son, smiling gently, and stood him away again to look at him. "Honey," she said, "honey, what are you doing here? I thought… well, your father…"

"Oh, Mom, I couldn't stay with him another niinute, I just couldn't! I had to come to you!"

Lily looked past him again to Carl and Cindy. "Let's go inside and talk honey," she told her son.

But the couple were walking towards Lily now, Carl smiling disarmingly. Lily felt uncomfortable in his presence. Even though she didn't care for his type, she had to admit he was one hell of a hunk of man; and a night with her long lithe legs wrapped tightly around him would probably be one she wouldn't soon forget…

Carl said: "We picked up your son hitchhiking outside of Reno, Lily. We had a long talk, and he confided in us to a great extent. And we sort of feel obligated to see him through and lend him moral support."

Lily did not like the way he used her first name so familiarly. She said coolly: "Why should he need moral support?"

"Mom, I just had to tell someone, I just had to!" Eddie confessed. "Carl and Cindy have been so great, and it was so much easier for me to tell them first, before I told you, because they weren't involved in it and…"

"Calm down, honey, you're all excited."

"If you'd rather we left the two of you alone," Carl said, "I won't interfere. We just thought perhaps we could help in-some way."

"As a matter of fact," Lily told him, "I'd prefer to see my son alone."

"Mom! They're only…"

"It's all right, Eddie," the blonde woman smiled. "I don't think you'll be needing our support anyway. Your mother is on your side. I can tell that."

"Was there ever any doubt of that?" Lily asked her son.

"Oh no, Mom, I just thought… well, wait until I tell you what happened…"

"We'll be going now," Carl said softly, his dark eyes moving slowly over Lily's voluptuous form. "And if it's all right, I'd like to drop back to see Eddie, perhaps tomorrow. After all, he did confide in me and I consider him my friend now, and I'd like to know that everything's all right."