Winter Moon

McGarvey thinking.
        Toby was in his pajamas in an armchair in the living room, in front of the television, legs stretched out on a footstool, covered in blankets..He was watching cartoons on a cable channel that programmed exclusively for kids.
        Heather knew to the penny what the cable subscription cost. Back in October, when she'd still had a job, she'd have had to guess at the amount and might not have come within five dollars of it.
        On the TV, a tiny mouse was chasing a cat, which had apparently been hypnotized into believing that the mouse was six feet tall with fangs and blood-red eyes.
        "Gourmet orange sherbet," she said, handing Toby the bowl and spoon,
        "finest on the planet, brewed it up myself, hours upon hours of drudgery, had to kill and skin two dozen sherbets to make it."
        "Thanks, Mom," he said, grinning at her, then grinning even more broadly at the sherbet before raising his eyes to the TV screen and locking onto the cartoon again.
        Sunday through Tuesday, he had stayed in bed without making a fuss, too miserable even to agitate for television time. He had slept so much that she'd begun to worry, but evidently sleep had been what he needed.
        Last night, for the first time since Sunday, he'd been able to keep more than clear liquids in his stomach, he'd asked for sherbet and hadn't gotten sick on it. This morning he'd risked two slices of unbuttered white toast, and now sherbet again. His fever had broken, the flu seemed to be running its course.
        Heather settled into another armchair. On the end table beside her, a coffee-pot-shaped thermos and a heavy white ceramic mug with red and purple flowers stood on a plastic tray. She uncapped the thermos and refilled the mug with a premium coffee flavored with almond and chocolate, relishing the fragrant steam, trying not to calculate the cost per cup of this indulgence.
        After curling her legs on the chair, pulling an afghan over her lap, and sipping the brew, she picked up a paperback edition of a Dick Francis novel.
        She opened to the page she had marked with a slip of paper, and she tried to return to a world of English manners, morals, and mysteries.
        She felt guilty, though she was not neglecting anything to spend time with a book. No housework needed to be done. When they'd both held jobs, she and Jack had shared chores at home. They still shared them.
        When she'd been laid off, she'd insisted on taking over his domestic duties, but he'd refused. He probably thought that letting her fill her time with housework would lead her to the depressing conviction that she would never find another job. He'd always been as sensitive about other people's feelings as he was optimistic about his own prospects. As a result, the house was clean, the laundry was done, and her only chore was to watch over Toby, which wasn't a chore at all.because he was such a good kid. Her guilt was the irrational if inescapable result of being, by nature and by choice, a working woman who, in this deep recession, was not permitted to work.
        She had submitted applications to twenty-six companies. Now all she could do was wait. And read Dick Francis.
        The melodramatic music and comic voices on the television didn't distract her.
        Indeed, the fragrant coffee, the comfort of the chair, and the cold sound of winter rain drumming on the roof combined to take her mind off her worries and let her slip into the novel.
        Heather had been reading fifteen minutes when Toby said, "Mom?"
        "Hmmm?" she said, without looking up from her book.
        "Why do cats always want to kill mice?"
        Marking her place in the book with her thumb, she glanced at the television, where a different cat and mouse were involved in another slapstick chase, the former pursuing the latter this time.
        "Why can't they be friends with mice," the boy asked, "instead of wanting to kill them all the time?"
        "It's just a cat's nature," she said.
        "But why?"
        "It's the way God made cats."
        "Doesn't God like mice?"
        "Well, He must, because He made mice too."
        "Then why make cats to kill them?"
        "If mice didn't have natural enemies like cats and owls and coyotes, they'd overrun the world."
        "Why would they overrun the world?"
        "Because they give birth to litters, not single