“I hope you’re right,” Curt said. “Mom deserves to be happy.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, his tone distant as he gazed out the window. “She really does.”
# # #
The house seemed even smaller than he remembered — a tiny, single-story ranch-style house on the corner, two blocks from the North Meadows downtown. The porch light glowed a dim yellow as Curt pulled the car into the freshly shoveled driveway.
The brothers unpacked their luggage and presents and shuffled to the front door. Both hands full with bags, Curt reached out to ring the doorbell. Before he could press the button, the door swung open.
“My boys!” Donna said, and beckoned them inside.
The brothers hustled in out of the cold and put down their things in the narrow entryway. As he stomped the snow off his boots, Curt took a look at his mother. Unlike North Meadows, time had been kind to her. She had always been shapely, with full hips, large breasts, and smooth, tanned skin, but her best feature was probably her full lips, which were still as red and lush as he’d remembered them being.
Curt had always felt a little odd thinking of his mother in such terms, but even throughout high school and college, he’d heard “your Mom is hot” often enough from his friends that he’d finally acknowledged it himself.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Donna said, drawing him into a hug. She wore snug jeans and a red sweater with a low scoop neck that showed off a considerable amount of cleavage, and Curt found himself self-consciously aware of her breasts pressing against him as she hugged him.
“Hi, Mom,” he said.
Donna pulled back and kissed him on the lips, a habit she’d never broken no matter how much either of them had begged growing up. Most mothers settled for a peck on the cheek. Not theirs.
“You cut your hair,” Curt said, reaching out to touch her curly brown locks. Once long and flowing down to her waist, her hair was shorter now, falling just past her shoulders. “It looks nice.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet,” Donna said with a bright smile.
“Hi, Mom,” Tyler said, and stepped in for his own hug and kiss. She pressed herself against him with equal abandon, planting a big kiss on his lips afterward.
“Speaking of haircuts, I see someone’s in need of one,” she said, tousling Tyler’s shaggy head of hair. He squirmed away a little and grinned.
“You know me, I have to preserve my bad-boy image,” he said.
“That’s you, all right,” Donna said, and touched his cheek. “You’ll always be my bad boy.”
# # #
Never straying from her motherly instincts, Donna ordered them to take off their boots and coats and stow their luggage in the guest rooms. The house, though small, had three fairly generous bedrooms, and she had kept both the boys’ rooms unchanged. Curt returned to his old room to find his posters still on the wall, his books still on the shelf, and his bed made. It was as if he’d never left.
After putting away their things, Curt and Tyler emerged with a small handful of presents, which they stowed under the meager plastic Christmas tree their mother had set up in the living room. A small pile of them already lay stuffed underneath the tiny tree, tags showing both their names in their mother’s precise lettering.
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