He did. He had forgotten until right now that he remembered. "You said, that boy's getting the short end."
"I said, that boy's getting the short end of everything in that house, and somebody better notice before he notices. And you told me Renee was tired." She turned and looked at him. "I'm not saying it to rub your nose in it, baby. I'm saying it because you're standing out here acting like it fell on you from the sky this morning. It didn't fall from the sky. It's been coming down slow for years, and you had an umbrella."
He took it. He did not argue. It was true.
"What do I do, Mama?"
"You keep doing what you did this morning," Odessa said. "Every day. Not just Christmas. You don't buy him things. You notice him. You say his name. You make sure he gets his piece of the cake. And you get her some help, because whatever that is in her, it's not going to walk out on its own." She paused. "I'll take him on Saturdays, if you want. For a while. Not to take him away from her. Just so he has somewhere he's the only one."
"She won't like that."
"I didn't ask what she'd like."
They went back inside. On her way to the kitchen Odessa passed Renee at the sink, and Terrence braced for something, a look, a word. But his mother only stopped and put one hand on Renee's back, between the shoulder blades, and left it there for a second. Renee went very still under it.
"I'm sorry about your mama, honey," Odessa said quietly. "I never did say that enough."
Then she took her hand away and went to cut the pie, and she did not say anything else to Renee for the rest of the day, warm or cold, and Terrence understood that both of those things were on purpose.
***
Jonah opened his presents after supper, when his grandmother had gone home and the house had gone quiet and the tree was the only light again.
He did it slowly, sitting on the rug, with Terrence beside him and Brielle lying on her stomach nearby pretending not to watch. He did not tear. He found the place where the tape was and worked at it with his small fingers until it gave, and he folded the brown paper back like a door. The train book. He rubbed the fabric caboose with his thumb. The slippers, which he put on over his socks and stood up in and looked down at, the felt teeth bobbing. The puzzle. The xylophone, which he hit once, softly, and then set down as if it might be too loud for the house. The dump truck, which he pushed one time across the rug and then parked carefully beside him, facing out.