“Are you okay?”
I quickly wipe the tears from my face and paste a quick smile on it.
“Yeah bud, I’m alright.”
Danny, my six year old son frowns at me and enters my room.
“Are you sure mamma? It looks like you’re not,” he climbs up the two mattresses on the ground that I use for a bed and into my lap.
“Are you crying mamma?” he reaches up to my face with his tiny hands and wipes away a tear that slips from my eye.
“I’m alright Danny; you don’t need to worry about me.”
I am a 22 year old single mother with no high school diploma. Daniel’s father left as soon as he found out I was pregnant. I work at McDonalds. We live in a small one room apartment. In all actuality, I did need someone to worry about me, but my six year old son was not that person.
Danny looks up into my eyes and says, “I know you’re not mamma.”
And that’s when I fall apart.
I break down and cry right there in front of my little boy. At first he is bewildered, but suddenly, he opens his arms and hugs me. So we sit there, on my tiny bed, clutching each other. After a while, my eyes have run dry. Danny releases me and asks, “Are you okay mamma?” I’m about to say my regular answer, when I realize that there isn’t any use. Even though he’s only six, I know now that he sees me struggle.
“No Danny, I’m not all that great actually.”
He nods, appreciating my honesty, and then crawls off of my lap, and then out of the small room I have made for myself out of curtains.
He waddles back in a moment later with a giant smile on his face, and I can’t help but smile back at him.
“What is it Danny?”
He comes closer to me and then plops something round and pink into my lap.
It’s a piggy bank.
“Open it mamma! Open it!”
I pull the small black rubber plug from the bottom of it out, and then a ten dollar bill falls onto my knees, along with some other lose change.
“Where did you get this Daniel?” I ask, shocked and slightly worried that he might have stolen it.
“I helped someone with their food and they gave me that!” he says.
I give him a questioning look. “Food?”
He frowns a little and then says, “Grow-shrees,” and smiles triumphantly at his conquest. I laugh and scoop him up into my arms.
“You helped them with their groceries?” he nods excitedly. I hug him tightly and then whisper in his ear, “Thank you Danny.”
He leans in closer to me and puts his lips right next to my ear.
“It’s okay mamma.”
And somehow, I know it is.