Citizen Insane - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,26
him. Quick—dry those eyes. I hear the girls.”
I had just wiped my face clean when Bethany and Amber appeared with sweaters on and backpacks filled.
“Were you crying, Mommy?” asked Amber. “Is it the polar bear?”
“That’s it. The polar bear. The polar bear hospital just called me on my cell phone and told me that he’s just fine—he’ll be fishing in cold waters any day now. These are happy tears.”
Amber hugged me tight. “I love you.”
I kissed her head of red curls. She smelled so good. “I love you too.”
Bethany came in for a hug next and whispered in my ear. “Your cell phone is in the other room on the coffee table. It’s been there since yesterday.”
I’d been caught. “Thanks,” I said when she pulled away. “I love you too honey. We’ll talk about all of this. Soon.”
She smiled. So did I, but it was a bittersweet smile. They grow up too fast.
Colt scooted the girls out the door and said he would check in later. I was nibbling the last of my eggs when the phone rang. Part of me didn’t want to bother even looking to see who it was. I was tired, my body hurt and I just wanted to be left alone. The other part of me wondered whether the caller might be Howard. I succumbed, even though my muscles screamed at rising from the chair and taking two steps to the phone.
Despite my deep love for Peggy, I was disappointed to see her name on the caller ID. Okay, I’d answer and whine that Howard hadn’t called me.
“Hi, Peg.”
“You sound down in the dumps.”
“If there’s something lower than the dumps, that’s where I’m at.”
“Up for company? I’ve got a few minutes before I need to start errands.”
“Sure. Colt made coffee and it’s still warm.”
I hadn’t even placed the receiver back in its cradle when I heard a light tapping on my front door.
“Come in Roz!” I yelled.
The door opened. “How did you know it was me?” she asked as she came around into the kitchen from the foyer.
“You’re the very essence of polite. Someone else would have rung the doorbell. You didn’t want to bother me if I was resting.”
“I try,” she smiled. “The sky is looking really nasty out there. Are we supposed to get rain?”
“Haven’t caught the news for days now. We could be expecting the latest snowstorm in recorded history and I wouldn’t know it.”
“How do you feel?”
I pulled a coffee mug from the cupboard and handed it to her while pointing to the coffee pot. “You know that scene in The Matrix when Neo practices jumping between buildings but he doesn’t make it and falls to the ground, but it’s not really the ground, and he wakes up in the real world again?”
She stirred cream into her coffee. “What’s The Matrix?”
“Come on! I know you don’t watch many movies, but EVERYONE knows The Matrix.”
She shook her head. “Who’s in it?”
“Never mind. The magic is lost now. I feel like crap. My whole body hurts. You would have thought that the tree branch came to life and beat me up after I hit my head on it.”
We sat at the table. “Is Howard here?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
“I know. Don’t ask me why his car is here and he isn’t. There was no note, nothing. And it gets better. He wasn’t home this morning when my mom called him to pick up the girls.”
She cringed. “Sorry.”
“I’ll call him in a few minutes, when I feel like I can talk calmly instead of flipping out and going all Judge Judy on him.”
“So no more news, then?”
“My van is being held for evidence. I wonder if I should use Howard’s or get a rental?”
“Nothing about Michelle?”
We heard the door swoosh open followed by a, “Ciao, Bella!”
“Roz is here too!” I hollered. “Forgot to tell you—Peggy’s coming over.”
“Oh good!” Peggy said, making her kitchen appearance while fixing her wild red hair. “Mama Mia, has the wind started whipping up out there. It looks like the clouds are going to open up and dump buckets any minute.” Her face lit up when she saw the half-full coffee pot. “Oh! May I?””
“Help yourself.”
She snatched a mug from my cupboard and poured. “So, before I took the boys to school this morning, I stopped by the Alexanders’ house to see if I could help in any way.” She shook her head. “It’s bad.”
I was as anxious as Roz to hear how Michelle was doing. “What did her husband say?”
“I didn’t talk to