Hope's Boy 4

Now Andy is going through first grade. It is just about Christmas as Andy waits anxiously for his first Christmas with his mother. However he is just a child and he is not able to realize everything that happens around him. He is maintaining what innocence is left. he is troubled by what he doesn't understand and this is shown when, "At night, when she thought I was sleeping, I listened to her whispering in tears, as she sparred with the darkness...I never got up to help her fight with the nothingness"(Bridge 80). When his mother is sleeping she has nightmares and her psychological help is somewhat deteriorating. He senses that she is having trouble but he doesn't fully understand what is happening so he stays in his comfort zone. His mom had to do a lot of things to survive as their life slowly disappeared. Hope did things like, "reached for a small plastic bag and shoved it down the top of her coat"(Bridge 83). She had to steal to give Andy a Christmas. Andy knows it's wrong but he doesn't know what to do so he just ignores it and trusts his mother. He has a blind trust in his mother and will anything to ensure that his image of her is not tarnished.
Their lives changed for the worse when Hope's psychological health degraded. She is unable to maintain a job and their quality of life begins to degrade. A lot of things happen like, "One evening, when my mother tried to slide the key into our front door, we discovered that the landlord had changed the lock"(Bridge 81). She is unable to pay the rent the landlord locked them out. Their lack of money has caused them to be homeless. She breaks into her old apartment so that her son has a place to sleep. They also had to rely on other things for survival like, "We began living on food stamps and government checks, and she spent less time with me"(Bridge 81). They are are on government assisted living because Hope is unable to earn a salary fit to support her and Andy. The pressure of a child was too much for her and she began to feel adverse effects.