Larry ducked out of the kitchen before stopping dead in his tracks as Sandy breathed out his name. “Larry R. Jordan!”
“What’s my middle name, Mom?”
Sandy always forgot her sons’ middle names. Larry’s older brother Lionel also had a middle name that started with R. One of them was Ronald and the other Reginald. She could never remember which was which. The embarrassment of being a mother who legitimately couldn’t remember her sons’ middle names was too much for her to admit.
“Your middle name is Ronald.”
“Wrong.”
“Shit.”
“You can’t make me do the dishes if you can’t remember my middle name.”
Sandy felt the mom guilt coming on strong and shrugged her shoulders, letting Larry off the hook.
She slunked back to the kitchen and did the dishes herself.