in her tone, but by the time our meeting ends, I get the feeling that all is well.
We discuss the upcoming week and Trisha says that she will check in with my clients’ moms and try to arrange some hours for the next day.
“I really appreciate this,” I say, giving her a warm hug and walking out of the office.
As soon as I get outside, I let out a deep sigh of relief. I didn't realize it, but I have been holding my breath this whole time.
I'm not getting fired. Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to actually be able to pay my bills and get back to life as I know it.
That feeling of exhilaration quickly turns sour as soon as I pull out of the parking lot.
This is not at all how I had imagined my life going only a week ago. I was lying in Tyler's arms, holding him in mine. Will we ever see each other again?
Time is supposed to make separation from loved ones more palatable, but not if you don't know where they are. Maybe it hasn't been long enough, but I have a feeling that if I never hear from Tyler again, then I'll be looking for him for the rest of my life.
Seeing that my car is running low on gas, I drive into the gas station and grab my bag. I search around for my wallet and stumble upon the other phone with my old SIM card. I put a credit card into the machine and put the pump in the gas tank, holding the phone tightly.
And then, before the car is entirely full, it rings.
The sound startles me and I nearly drop the phone.
“Hello? Hello?” Again, I hear someone breathing on the other END but not saying a word.
It has to be Tyler. It just has to be.
“Is that you? I'm sorry. I didn't take anything from you. I was just borrowing it, I had to save my mom.”
I try to be as vague as possible, but I can't. I'm not even entirely sure that it's Tyler on the other end, but in case it is, I need him to know the truth.
Still, he says nothing.
I no longer hear anyone on the other end so I glance down at the screen and see that the time tracking the phone calls is increasing.
This means that he is still there.
“I’m here,” I say, still avoiding using his name.
I do that more to protect his identity than my connection to him.
“I'm sorry. I need to explain. I did not betray you. I came back. I needed to help my mother.”
The call ends and I'm no closer to knowing whether I have actually talked to the real Tyler or not.
31
Isabelle
I resume work and everything returns to normal. My mother is living with me, something I have never experienced as an adult, but it's going a lot better than it ever did when I was a kid.
She's courteous and polite. She washes the dishes and does the laundry. She spends most of her days watching daytime television and playing games on her phone, and I'm glad that she is not out there on the streets like she used to be.
Still, I can't help but wonder how long this will last.
When I was a kid, we went through periods of this, too. She would be home when I got home from school and she would bake me cookies and make me dinner. The one year that I ran track, she even attended my meets and picked me up from practice. Then she started disappearing again.
When my dad was still around, they would fight, make up, and then disappear together. They liked to party and drink in bars and do drugs together. Inevitably, they would break up. One or both of them would lose their job and Mom would kick him out.
After they broke up and Dad moved out for good, sometimes these periods of peace and contentment would last as long as a month or two.
Then she would get bored and go back to the bars. She would meet a guy and she would start sleeping over at his house and disappear for days on end.
I was older then but still a teenager. I was the one that stayed home and worried about where she was.
I sometimes look back and wonder why I never had a childhood, but it’s because I was never allowed to be a child. I had to be the grown-up.