Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,48
a coffee with me to the office desk and dial up Aaron.
“Aaron, I’m not coming in today.”
“Shit,” he replies, his fingers clacking on the keys as he talks to me. “I’m shorthanded already. And listen, you should probably call Evelyn.”
Another round of layoffs, just like the last time they called an all-hands meeting.
“Oh, great. I’m toast, aren’t I?”
The clacking pauses. “We don’t know that. They’re talking to everyone individually.”
“I can’t deal with it now. I’m having a crisis at home.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“How?”
“Your dad called this morning already.”
“Dammit.”
“Don’t worry about it, I know the drill. I ended up transferring him to Evelyn. She’ll say no, too, but I didn’t have time to argue with him. But listen, I am sorry. I wish we could help—”
“No, I know. Dylan’s not in town anyway, it seems.”
“Hey, I’ve gotta go, but listen, when you hear something, let us know, okay? Meanwhile, when you can, call Evelyn. About the meeting you missed.”
A voice interrupts us.
“Gotta run, Mike.”
I barely get out a “good-bye” when he hangs up. I don’t mind. The paper still has to come out. Life goes on and all that.
I glance out at the blowing snow whirling in the gunmetal sky. It’s daylight now, I could risk the drive more easily. Except my little Honda wouldn’t be of much use in a wreck. It would crumple like tinfoil.
I hear footfalls on the steps and turn to see Angel. She comes right to me, and I just shake my head. She throws herself into my arms, burying her face. When she steps back I can see from the pale blue hollows under her eyes that she’s slept very little.
“The good news is,” I tell her, smudging a tear away with my thumb, “is that they have confirmed that Tiffany really is a girl.”
I see her relax a few degrees. “Oh, good. Well, that’s good. Can I have some coffee, Dad?”
“We don’t have any lattes or anything, kiddo. Just the boring Maxwell House stuff.”
She shrugs. “I’m so tired.”
“Well, fine. Go ahead, if you can stand it.”
Angel rummages for a cup, and as she’s pouring coffee from the machine, the sight of her performing this simple, adult action thunks me in the chest like an arrow. My girl, my first child, who was a baby when we were still in college and babes ourselves.
Jewel emerges now, her hair knotted from her usual crazy sleeping. She’s rubbing her eyes beneath her glasses, skewing them as she does so they end up crooked on her face.
She looks at the kitchen clock and gasps. “Oh, no! We’ll be late for school!”
For a moment she stares around at everyone in pajamas, none of us hurrying, no one packing lunches. Then her face crumples in. “I forgot!” she cries, and flees back upstairs, wailing. “I forgot!”
Mallory is faster, and closer, so she gets there first. I follow them up the stairs.
Jewel sobs on her bed, burying her face in her blankie. She still keeps the blankie around, but I haven’t seen it much since the first weeks after Mallory and I split. Actually, I’d thought it was put away somewhere by now.
“Baby,” Mallory says, stroking Jewel’s hair, but her hand is shaking. “He’s okay. I’m sure he is. Don’t you ever get so mad sometimes you want to leave?”
Jewel shakes her head into her blanket.
“Well, teenagers do. And you know what? Pretty soon he’ll get hungry and cold and miss his own bed and he’ll decide to come home.”
At this Jewel picks her head up and looks at Mallory, her face puckered as if with confusion. “But doesn’t he miss me?”
I interject, “It’s complicated. Teenagers are confusing people, and they don’t always think very clearly.”
Jewel’s eyes dart between us, one hand already on her stomach.
I sit down with them on the bed, putting my hand on her mother’s shoulder, and my other hand on Jewel’s knee. “It’s okay. I’m sure he misses us and that’s when he’ll decide to come home. He’s a good kid, isn’t he? He’ll realize that we’re worried and he’ll come home.”
Jewel nods, but there’s no light in her eyes.
A moment passes, all of us ringed together, our hands on each other, joined by worry. In my line of sight is that picture on her bulletin board, the last picture taken of us as an intact family. It’s tacked up next to a magazine cutout of a pony.
Jewel breaks the silence. “Can I watch cartoons while I eat?”
“Sure,” answers Mallory, and I sigh but don’t protest.