“Do you need any help with that?” Mr. Gibbons asked. The store wasn’t very busy during the middle of the week. It wasn’t really a feed store; there hadn’t been any livestock in the neighborhood since sometime in the nineteenth century. Weekends, the place was packed with suburbanites, coming in for bird seed and lawn and garden supplies. The lawn and garden business slowed down during the winter months.
    “No, I’m fine.” It was nice of him to ask. Mrs. Gibbons or their daughter Peggy would collect her money for the twenty-five pound bag of bird seed without asking if she needed any help. She supposed she looked able enough.
    Outside, she grabbed one of the bags and dropped it in the trunk. A “help wanted” sign was posted in the window.
    Twenty minutes later, she was home, Jonathan seated on the front porch. She was hoping he wouldn’t show up.
    He watched as she got out of the car, popped open the trunk and hoisted the bag on her shoulder while fumbling with her purse. It wouldn’t kill him to ask if he could help, but Bonnie had given up on the boy. She should suggest he go to work at the feed store helping out Peggy. They’d make a fine pair. The trunk slammed shut.
    “What’s up?” he asked, waiting to stand till she was at the front door.
    “Not much.” She opened the door and he watched as she toted the bag down the hall.
    She stuck the bag on the back porch while Jonathan stuck his head in the refrigerator. “Any good leftovers?”
    “You’ll have to look.”
    The boy was hopeless. She hated to think it. She’d managed not to say it to his face. At least, not lately. “That sort of attitude isn’t good for his self esteem,” Bonnie’s mother told her. Her mother who’d spent a good part of her life defending whatever Jonathan did and chiding Bonnie for being too hard on the boy.
    “You spoil him, mom.”
    “No, I don’t. But if I do, that’s what Grandmas are for.” His grandmother never believed Jonathan was capable of doing anything wrong.
    When he’d been caught, involved in a series of incidents that landed him in the principal’s office and finally, in high school, suspended, Bonnie’s mother blamed her. “The boy’s father was never there for him.”
    He’d managed to graduate from high school and started college. “I want to go away to school,” he said.
    “We can’t afford that,” Bonnie told him, offering to pay expenses at the community college.
    He’d agreed to spend one semester there only because Grandma promised him a car and all expenses paid at the university if he did well the first semester.
    Jonathan was paging through the newspaper eating a piece of cheese. Bonnie supposed it was too much to hope he might be looking for a job.
    “Have you called your Grandma?”
    “Yeah.”
    He managed the first semester without flunking out, but only after dropping half his classes. Bonnie figured he had about six hours of credits by December with barely passing grades. That was good enough for Grandma who helped him fill out the papers to transfer.
    Before the spring semester ended, he’d totaled his car, dropped out completely and owed one of his roommates a substantial sum of money.
    He settled into his old room till something turned up and would’ve stayed with his grandmother except she’d made the move into a senior retirement community. Now, she told Bonnie it was up to her to figure out how the boy could be straightened out.
    “What he really needs is a period of adjustment,” was Grandma’s response.
    Bonnie bit her tongue not saying what he really needed was a swift kick in the ass. Her mother didn’t approve of violence.
    “They’re looking for help at the feed store,” she told him.
    “Yeah, doing what?” He said it like he expected to be hired on at the executive level of a Fortune Five Hundred company. Lack of self confidence had never been a problem.
    “I don’t know,” she shrugged, “helping behind the counter, carrying bird seed out to customer’s cars.”
    “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
    He had tried to get a job when he first returned from college. A former girlfriend was working as a drug rep and he was interested, but lacked the requisite credentials. Then, he latched on to a buddy who was tending bar, but he was under age. Finally, he told Bonnie he was thinking about joining the military. Grandma put an end to that idea and advanced him enough money to get a place and a used car.
    “I may as well give it to you now as wait till I die,” had been her rationale.
    Bonnie went in the muddy backyard to fill the bird feeder. With the snow, she hadn’t been as diligent about keeping the birds well fed, watching them peck around in the snow for the kernels of corn and seed the squirrels spilled onto the ground. There were icy patches on the back steps. She needed to spread some salt.
    Jonathan followed her out back, standing at the top of the steps, like he was waiting to tell or ask her something. She hadn’t seen him for over a month, the longest they’d ever gone without speaking.
    “Mom,” he started, heading down the steps, slipping on the ice.
    “Are you okay?” she asked.
    “I think I hurt my back.” He had a pained expression on his face.
    Now, she supposed he’d be holed up at her place till he recovered or something better came along. A cat or dog would have been a better companion.
    After the initial shock of the fall, he asked Bonnie if he should go to the emergency room or call an ambulance.
    “Do you have insurance?” she asked looking at him on the ground, not quite convinced he hadn’t planned the fall and knowing she should have a little more sympathy for him. He shook his head and she asked if he could move his fingers and toes and when the answer was positive said he was probably okay.
    “Aren’t you going to help me up?” he said when it looked as if Bonnie was going to step over him on her way into the house.
    She held out her hand and, amid much moaning and groaning on his part, he managed to make it as far as the living room. “I need a little time to rest,” his breath was labored and Bonnie was about to suggest he might consider a career as an actor.
    Two weeks later, he was still at the house, stretched out on the sofa, remote in hand watching mindless television most of the day when he wasn’t asking Bonnie to bring him something to eat. Sometimes, Bonnie brought him a sandwich or soda, but most times she said it would be better if he moved around. He’d limp into the kitchen, stubble on his face his father’s old plaid bathrobe hanging open, tee shirt and pajama bottoms beneath and stumble to the refrigerator while hanging onto the counter for support.
    “I’m feeling better today,” he managed weakly. Bonnie wished she hadn’t retired. Thirty-five years of teaching had left her drained. She should’ve been a better parent she realized looking at her progeny, but keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table had been a priority after his father, Warren, moved out.
    “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help you,” were Warren’s parting words. Bonnie’s mother was right about Warren not being a presence in Jonathon’s life. Maybe Bonnie should encourage him to join the Army although she doubted he’d last through boot camp.
    “I’m glad to hear that.” Bonnie wiped her hands on a dish towel as she finished putting away breakfast dishes. “Have you thought any more about looking for a job?”
    Jonathan’s head was buried in the refrigerator. Bending over elicited moans and groans till he found something edible.
    “Ma, how can I do that?”
    Bonnie hated when he called her ma. “Well, you said you felt better.”
    “Not that much better.” Then he hobbled back to the sofa which was developing a deep gorge in the middle. She’d replace it as soon as he was gone.
    She listened as the volume of the television rose and went to the spare bedroom she used as an office, the place where she’d dumped all the debris of her teaching career and where she’d spent many evenings grading papers. She shuddered at the memory as she sat at the desk. She needed to clean it out, but somehow never got around to it. Since Jonathan had been home, she’d been so unnerved she couldn’t begin to face the chore.
    She opened one of the side drawers where she kept correspondence from Warren.
    He’d seemed like such a catch. She nearly choked every time she thought about it. It wasn’t easy to forget Warren since Jonathon looked more like him everyday.
    Then she found Warren’s last known address along with his latest business card, boasting his totally undecipherable position in some bogus sounding company. She dialed the number and was relieved when a recorder picked up.
    “Hi, Warren, this is Bonnie.” She paused for a second, trying to gather her wits, wondering how tactful she should be in her request. Before she could launch into her next sentence, Warren was on the other end of the line.
    “Bonnie,” he sounded jovial and smiling, as if he were about to reel in the latest chump.
    “Warren, Jonathan’s been staying with me…” and she felt his tone cooling. She forged ahead, undeterred by Warren and in the end, he agreed.
    “Jonathan,” Bonnie shook his shoulder. He was sound asleep, his mouth open and the television blaring.
    “Huh,” a startled expression on his face as she jolted him from slumber. Bonnie didn’t know how anyone could sleep that much.
    “Your father’s coming to get you.”
    He sat up, apparently without pain and scratched his head. “Yes, we were talking,” Bonnie’s hands on her hips, “we’ve decided the best thing for you would be to stay with him for a while.”
    “Huh?” he was almost fully awake and Bonnie heard his stomach growl.
    “He thinks he might be able to help you find some work till you decide what you want to do.” She left the statement hanging for him to absorb. “You might want to think about cleaning up before he gets here,” and then she went around the house to collect his things.
    For once, Warren showed up promptly at three to pick up Jonathan making Bonnie wish he’d been that punctual all the times Jonathan waited to see his father once Warren and Bonnie had separated.
    They exchanged pleasantries without Bonnie offering Warren either a chair or something to drink, anxious for them both to disappear.
    “Well, I think that’s everything,” Jonathan said, holding the duffle bag Bonnie scrounged up from his closet.
    “Well, take care,” she said, opening the door for the two of them before either had a change of mind or heart.