Ten years later, I found the Nebula-9 Starhopper.
Not in a catalog this time, but on the bottom shelf of a thrift store, sun-faded and dented, an orange sticker slapped over the logo: $6.00.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
I was supposed to be buying work pants for my diner job. Leo was seventeen now, all limbs and sarcasm, working part-time at the grocery store. Our life wasn’t an emergency anymore, just a tightrope—steady until a gust of wind hit.
I picked up the box.
The spaceship on the cover was exactly as I remembered: too sleek, too shiny, promising entire galaxies in batteries and molded plastic. A marketing team somewhere had been paid to make parents like me feel like failures.
“Ma’am? You okay?” the cashier called.
“How much is this?” I asked.
She checked the sticker. “Six bucks. Toy guy says the lights don’t work. You still want it?”
Did I? Leo had a learner’s permit and opinions about interest rates. He did not need a toy meant for kids who still believed Santa used store-bought wrapping paper.
But suddenly I wasn’t in a thrift store. I was back in that cold apartment, my fingers raw from duct tape, watching my seven-year-old crawl into a refrigerator box that smelled like garbage and stars.
“I’ll take it,” I whispered.
“You want a bag?” she asked.
I hugged the box to my chest. “No. I’ve been carrying this one for a long time.”
—
I hid it in my closet for a week.
Every night after my shift, I’d sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the faded rocket ship on the front. My brain ran reruns: that first cardboard Christmas, and all the ones after where I tried to make up for it.
There was the year a church gave us a real tree and Leo insisted on a paper star. The year I finally had stable hours and buried the living room in presents like a guilty apology.
That night I’d found him sitting in the dark later, scrolling my old photos. The refrigerator box glowed on the screen—silver tape seams, crooked control panel, his grin too big for his face.
“Remember?” he’d said. “When we went to Mars?”
I’d smiled and changed the subject. My private translation was harsher: Remember the year I failed you?
The guilt never really left. It just changed shape.
—
The Saturday before Christmas break, I came home to find Leo at the kitchen table, textbooks fanned out like armor. The apartment smelled faintly of burnt popcorn.
“You overcooked physics again?” I asked, hanging up my coat.
He snorted. “Very funny. I’m trying not to fail chem.”
His hair flopped into his eyes. There was stubble on his chin. When had my co-pilot outgrown the cockpit?
“Hey,” I said, suddenly nervous. “Can I show you something?”
He glanced up, wary. “That sounds like either a lecture or a scam.”
“Neither,” I said. “Come to my room.”
He followed me down the hall. I opened the closet and pulled out the Nebula-9 box.
He froze.
“No way,” he breathed.
“Found it at the thrift store,” I said, trying for casual. “Lights don’t work, but… I thought you should have the toy you didn’t get.”
I meant it as a joke. It came out like an apology.
Leo didn’t take the box.
Instead he looked at me—really looked at me. The seventeen-year-old slipped, and for a second I saw the seven-year-old who’d drawn crooked planets and backwards letters.
“Mom,” he said quietly. “You’ve been thinking about that Christmas this whole time?”
I laughed, but my throat felt tight. “Of course I have. I bought you trash instead of the one thing you wanted. That sticks with a person.”
He blinked, almost offended.
“That’s not what happened,” he said.
—
We sat on the edge of my bed with the Nebula-9 between us like a witness.
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me what happened. Be honest. I can take it.”
He ran his thumb along a dented corner.
“I remember you dragging that huge box up the stairs,” he began. “I heard you. I was supposed to be asleep, but you were swearing at it. It sounded like you were fighting a dragon.”
I snorted. “Accurate.”
“I remember the tree being gone and thinking maybe we’d been robbed,” he said. “And then I saw the spaceship. And you, with Sharpie on your face.” He smiled. “You had a black line right here.” He tapped the side of his nose.
I hadn’t known that.
“I remember you crawling in with me,” he went on. “You’d worked late, you were exhausted, and you still climbed in that box. You didn’t sit on the couch and tell me to ‘go play.’ You made rocket noises until your voice cracked.”
His eyes shone.
“I remember thinking the whole universe fit in that stupid box,” he said softly. “And that nobody else’s mom would’ve done that.”
My own eyes burned.
“You don’t remember being disappointed?” I asked. “About the real toy?”
He shrugged. “I remember knowing other kids got more stuff. But I also remember some of them telling me their parents just filmed them opening presents and then went back to their phones.”
He looked at me like it was obvious.
“I never once wished you’d bought me the plastic thing instead,” he said. “I just wished you’d stop beating yourself up for not buying it.”
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